Fatigue and fracture reliability engineering. (Q610614)

Chapter 1: Deterministic theorems on fatigue and fracture. (25 p.). Classical results with an emphasis on cyclic stress and growth of crack. The S-N curve is introduced which describes the resistance of material to fatigue in a stress-number of cycles diagrams. Chapter 2: Reliability and confidence levels of fatigue life. (35 p.). Introducing relevant distributions and their characteristics, statistical formulas, and estimation procedures. The authors emphasize the importance of small sample methods in the area of fatigue and fracture reliability. Chapter 3: Principles underpinning reliability based prediction of fatigue and fracture behaviours. (40 p.). Stochastic modeling of crack growth which is usually a randomized version of the deterministic equations from Chapter 1. The problem a practitioner is faced with is the small sample problem. A series of practical approaches of deterministic equations are proposed for the assessment of structural probability fatigue and fracture performance from a minimal dataset, based on recent original research papers of the authors, e.g., a ``single-point-likelihood method'' to assess structural fatigue performance from a minimal data set. Models with multi-parameter settings. Chapter 4: Data treatment and generation of fatigue and load spectrum. (27 p.). Standard and novel methods to describe load histories and to generate new histories. How can load cycles be detected? Parametric families of two-dimensional distributions for stress characteristics, stress amplitude and mean stress. Case study of a full-scale fatigue test on a helicopter tail. Chapter 5: Reliability design and assessment for total structural life. (20 p.). Probability methods for infinite life design and for finite structural reliability design and assessment methods. Chapter 6: Reliability prediction for fatigue damage and residual life in composites. (32 p.). High performance composites are of increasing importance, their theoretical understanding is a challenging project, and to understand their behavior becomes more important with their development. In this chapter an attempt is made to develop techniques for modeling the stress- and strain-based residual strengths, to characterize long-term cyclic behaviour and so to identify the governing parameters. Chapter 7: Chaotic fatigue. (22 p.). Methods from dynamical systems with incorporation of randomization procedures are described to statistically model emergence of cracks on a micro level of the material. In the Preface the authors propose: ``The book is intended for practising engineers in marine, civil construction, aerospace, offshore, automotive and chemical industries. It should also form a useful first reading for'' ... young researchers in mechanically-oriented engineering disciplines. In my opinion this is a rather precise description of a possible readership.