Long-Term Strength of Materials Reliability Assessment and Lifetime Prediction of Engineering Structures

The physics of fracture processes, which includes fracture mechanics, is crucial for understanding the longevity and reliability of any structure, from fracture initiation to propagation and final catastrophic failure. This textbook introduces the thermodynamics of irreversible processes along with entropy to address the time dependency of fracture. Working from observations of structural failure, the book identifies the principal failure types such as brittle fracture, with considerations of solo crack initiation and crack propagation associated with collective distributed damage. The other type is ductile fracture, when a crack blunts immediately on application of stress resulting in large deformation. The book then addresses the life of a structure in a specific environment and load condition, using irreversible thermodynamics and the entropy criterion to address cooperative fracture, and novel statistical fracture mechanics to address solo fracture. Applies well-established concepts from mechanics, absent in contemporary fracture mechanics Uses novel concepts of mechanics, irreversible thermodynamics, and statistical fracture mechanics The book is ideal for graduate students and design engineers in civil and materials engineering, as well as mechanical and chemical engineering. Students using the book need no more than basic college-level mechanics, mathematics, and statistics.

1. Review of Classical Strength of Materials. 2. Commonly Used Mathematical Tools. 3. Equations of Elasticity. 4. Conventional Fracture Mechanics. 5. Cooperative Brittle Fracture (Lifetime Prediction). 6. Solo Brittle Fracture and Statistical Fracture Mechanics. Appendix I. Summary of Onsager Reciprocal Relations. Appendix II. Historical Remarks on Energy Release Rates. Appendix III. Remarks on Emmy Noether's Theorem.

Alexander Chudnovsky is UIC Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Director of the Fracture Mechanics & Materials Durability Laboratory in the Civil and Materials Engineering Department of The University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. Over a career of more than 60 years he received numerous teaching awards, and the 2004 Outstanding Achievement Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers. Kalyan Sehanobish has been global plastic product consultant and owner of Materials & Adhesives Research Services since 2019, and for over 25 years was a Research Fellow at The Dow Chemical Company. He received the AUTOMOTIVE PACE award for IMPAXX foam in 2008.