Publisher's Synopsis
Understanding fracture for both safety and economy, and interest in the role of cracks and defects in engineering failure, has stimulated work in many disciplines, eg metallurgy, materials science, polymer science, physics, ceramics, adhesives, geological science, bio-mechanics and many others, particularly where these disciplines impinge on high technology. Covering a wide range of fracture problems systematically, the book is directed at the underlying science of the behaviour of cracked bodies. The approach includes cross-referencing between different solids, with a wide collection of rate, temperature, and environment-dependent toughness data for monotonic and fatigue fracture for metals, polymers, ceramics and biological materials.;New fields for fracture mechanics texts are covered, such as diverse plastic (metal forming) fracture, the role of toughness in wear and the fracture of biological and agricultural materials. Also, known problems such as the scale effect in fracture, stability of cracking and transitions between different modes of deformation (which relates to elastic, elastoplastic and plastic design methods) are reconsidered.
