ABSTRACT
Fracture of load-bearing components is always an important consideration for engineers who design, build, operate, and maintain bridges, highways, automobiles, trains, airplanes, power plants, chemical process equipment, and numerous other large pieces of machinery. Everyone understands the catastrophic consequences of structural failure and that sometimes it happens because the factors involved in predicting it are complex and are not well understood at the time the component is designed. Since the late 1950s, the developments in fracture mechanics have contributed immensely to our understanding of fractures that emanate from cracks or crack-like defects which could potentially escape detection.
