Fracture Mechanics

This book presents the theoretical concepts of stress and strain, as well as the strengthening and fracture mechanisms of engineering materials in an accessible level for non-expert readers, but without losing scientific rigor. This volume fills the gap between the specialized books on mechanical behavior, physical metallurgy and material science and engineering books on strength of materials, structural design and materials failure. Therefore it is intended for college students and practicing engineers that are learning for the first time the mechanical behavior and failure of engineering materials or wish to deepen their understanding on these topics.

"Structural and Failure Mechanics of Sandwich Composites" by Leif A. Carlsson and George A. Kardomateas focuses on some important deformation and failure modes of sandwich panels such as global buckling, wrinkling and local instabilities, and face/core debonding.

This book covers research from modern directions in solid mechanics, in particular, in the fields of mechanics of composite materials, fracture mechanics, strength of materials and structures, thermo-viscoelasticity and plasticity, mechanics of shell structures, contact mechanics, theory of wave propagation, dynamics of mechanical and hydromechanical systems.

This book has evolved from lectures on fracture mechanics and micromechanics which we held for students of engineering and natural sciences over the years. A major part of the book is devoted to linear elastic and elastic-plastic fracture mechanics. Further subjects are creep fracture, dynamic fracture mechanics, damage mechanics, probabilistic fracture mechanics, failure of thin films and fracture of piezoelectric materials.