ABSTRACT
The question of scaling has occupied a central position in many problems of physics and engineering. It acquired a particularly prominent role in fluid mechanics, providing the impetus for the development of the boundary layer theory, initiated by L. Prandtl. In the classical approach to statistical fracture, based on a perfect material with dilute small defects, one may also easily treat the case of defects concentrated in a narrow layer at the structure surface. All the mechanical properties and the balance equations themselves might need to be formulated in a consistent fractal framework. This would be a task for the years to come, but an essential one if fractality should ever lead to rigorous predictive models. With W. Weibull’s work, the basic framework of the statistical theory of size effect became complete. Most subsequent studies until the 1980s dealt basically with refinements, justifications and applications of Weibull’s theory.
