Fracture mechanics

✍ Scribed by F Erdogan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 167 KB
• Volume: 37
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7683
• DOI: 10.1016/s0020-7683(99)00086-4

✦ Synopsis

In this article, after a brief description of some signi®cant catastrophic structural failures going back to the period when iron and steel began to replace wood and masonry as the primary structural materials, the historical development of the ®eld of fracture mechanics is discussed. First, the basic concepts of the ®eld, the motivation underlying their development and the key contributions made in the area are brie¯y described. A summary of the key engineering applications of fracture mechanics, its methods, some recent important contributions and areas of future research is is then presented.