Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives The student is expected to acquire an advanced understanding of the use of fracture mechanics and damage tolerant design principles both in industrial design and in assessing structural integrity.
Synopsis This subject illustrates structural failures, cracking and related failures, S-N diagrams, miner rule, mean stress effects. Strain life, generalised cyclic stress/strain response, constitutive modelling and failure. Linear elastic fracture, Griffith criteria, stress intensity factors, Airy's stress function, crack tip stress fields. Finite element methods, alternating methods, complex variable methods. Mixed mode and 3D fracture, alternating solution in 3D handbook solutions. Repair technology, fatigue crack growth, Paris, Walker, Wheeler etc. Inspection intervals. Safe life and damage tolerance design philosophies.
Assessment Examination: 80% + Tutorials and laboratory work: 20%