Structural Integrity of Metals

The “Structural Integrity of Metals” covers a broad field of design and final assessment of complex metal structures with novel criteria and methods. Innovative approaches for designing and assessing against static and cyclic loadings will be considered providing an up-to-date state of the art on this topic. The aim of this Section is to discuss what tools are available to prevent damage to metallic structures combining the best possible knowledge from experimental campaigns, theoretical models, and finite elements. The Section will be focused on structures subjected to simple loading conditions but also on metallic structures subjected to multiaxial loading. The geometrical complexity of metallic structures will be considered as well, shedding light on the scale effect, notch effect, and other important aspects very useful for the final proper design. Recent trends in the use of big data analysis, statistical approaches, and data-driven methods (machine learning) will also be included in the Section. These topics are really relevant for the next generation of approaches for fracture and fatigue assessment.