Damage, Fracture, and Fatigue of Metals

Dear Colleagues,

Fatigue and fracture of metallic structural components cause problems in many industrial applications. Early fatigue research arose due to fatal accidents in the train and aircraft sectors and to avoid catastrophic failures through conservative designs. Today, research in damage, fracture, and fatigue often aims to reduce conservatism by increasing the accuracy of prediction models. This stresses a need to both understand damage mechanisms and to develop more advanced fatigue models.

Many aspects of damage, fracture, and fatigue remain unexplored. For example, the temperature and load history may influence the fatigue life and the fracture strength in unexpected ways. Damage mechanisms in metals are often complex and many examples exist where the exact damage mechanisms are not known. The role of mechanisms such as recrystallization, shift between transgranular and intergranular fracture, creep-fatigue interactions, hold time effects, and crack tip bluntening are still being investigated. Additionally, damage mechanisms in novel, recently introduced materials may differ from conventional materials. Lately, we have seen a rise of additively manufactured materials for which the damage mechanisms and fatigue properties are still relatively unexplored.

This Special Issue welcomes all contributions in the field of damage, fracture, and fatigue in metals but especially welcomes, e.g., damage mechanisms in advanced materials, the connection between damage mechanisms and mechanical properties, development of models of fatigue and fracture based on experimental findings, the role of crack closure, prediction methods including novel features, and the influence of temperature and load history.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Robert Eriksson
Guest Editor

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