applied fracture mechanics

XPrefaceSection "Fracture Mechanics Based Models of Fatigue" reminds that the phenomenonof fatigue still remains an important direction in fracture mechanics and attractsconsiderable attention of researches and engineers. The chapters presented here showefficacy of the traditional statistical approach and its improved versions in descriptionof structural fatigue (chapter 5), fretting fatigue (chapter 6), and in fitting experimentalfatigue crack growth curves (chapter 7). Even more complicated case of fatigue,namely the fatigue of steal in natural seawater at temperatures of tropical climates, isdiscussed with an account of the role of electrochemical processes (chapter 8).Section “Fracture Mechanics Aspects of Power Engineering” contains one chapter(chapter 9) dealing with application of fracture mechanics to the problems of safetyand lifetime of nuclear reactor components, primarily reactor pressure vessels withemphasis on pressurized thermal shock events.Section “Developments in Civil and Mechanical Engineering” deals with fracturemechanics analysis of large scale engineering structures, including various pipelines(chapters 10 and 12), generator fan blades (chapter 11), or of some more generalindustrial failures (chapter 13).The topics of this book cover a wide range of directions for application of fracturemechanics analysis in materials science, medicine, and engineering (power,mechanical, and civil). In many cases the reported experience of the authors withcommercial engineering software may be also of value to engineers applying suchcodes. The book is intended for mechanical and civil engineers, and also to materialscientists from industry, research, or education.Alexander BelovInstitute of CrystallographyRussian Academy of SciencesMoscowRussia