ABSTRACT
The above definition permits drawing two inferences. One regards the mechanical effects of damage. The loss of continuity will cause most, if not all, mechanical properties to be degraded. This degradation is the basis for mechanical investigations of damage effects and helps define appropriate measurements. The second inference regards the physical appearance of damage. At least at some scale, the loss of continuity should be manifested as cracks and voids. This is the motivation behind a number of investigations seeking to characterize damage using histological and histomorphometric techniques. It is also reasonable to expect that there is a correlation between physical observations of damage and mechanical effects of damage, motivating studies combining mechanical and histological measurements.
