Predicting the service life of structural components involves creep-fatigue crack growth (CFCG) testing under pure creep conditions. This article provides a discussion on the loading condition and the type of ductile and brittle material showing creep behavior. It focuses on a description of the experimental method that should be followed in conducting tests of CFCG with various hold times. The article describes the testing conditions, definitions, and the necessary calculations of various crack-tip parameters considered during static and cyclic loading in time-dependent fracture mechanics. The parameters considered for static loading are C*, C(t), C*(t), C*h, Ct, and Cst(t). For cyclic loading, the parameters are delta Jc and (Ct)avg. An overview of life-prediction models is also provided.

This article describes the fracture mechanics in fatigue. It discusses the fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) testing that consists of several steps, beginning with selecting the specimen size, geometry, and crack length measurement technique. The two major aspects of FCGR test analysis are to ensure suitability of the test data and to calculate growth rates from the data. The article presents an analysis of the crack growth data. Optical, compliance, and electric potential difference are the most common laboratory techniques, and the article reviews their merits and limitations. Forced-displacement, forced-vibration, rotational-bending, resonance, and servomechanical systems for various loading conditions are also discussed.

Testing and characterization of fatigue crack growth are used extensively to predict the rate at which subcritical cracks grow due to fatigue loading. ASTM standard E 647 is the accepted guideline for fatigue crack growth testing (FCGR) and is applicable to a wide variety of materials and growth rates. The two most widely used types of specimens are the middle-crack tension and compact-type specimens. This article describes the factors affecting the selection of appropriate geometries of these specimens: consideration of material availability and raw form, desired loading condition, and equipment limitations. Various crack measurement techniques, including optical, ultrasonic, acoustic emission, electrical, and compliance methods, are also reviewed. The article discusses the two major aspects of FCGR test analysis: to ensure suitability of the test data and to calculate growth rates from the data.

This article describes the phenomena of crack initiation and early growth. It examines specimen design and preparation as well as the apparatus used in crack initiation testing. The article provides descriptions of the various commercially available fatigue testing machines: axial fatigue testing machines and bending fatigue machines. Load cells, grips and alignment devices, extensometry and strain measuring devices, environmental chambers, graphic recorders, furnaces, and heating systems of ancillary equipment are discussed. The article presents technologies available to accomplish closed loop control of materials testing systems in performing standard materials tests and for the development of custom testing applications. It explores the advanced software tools for materials testing. The article includes a description of baseline isothermal fatigue testing, creep-fatigue interaction, and thermomechanical fatigue. The effects of various variables on fatigue resistance and guidelines for fatigue testing are also presented.

This article describes the concepts for characterizing and predicting elevated-temperature crack growth in structural materials. It discusses both creep and creep-fatigue crack growth and focuses mainly on creep crack growth tests that are carried out in accordance with ASTM E 1457. The article provides information on typical test procedures and equipment used for these tests. It concludes with information on crack growth correlations.

This article describes the types, mechanism, and typical test methods along with their configurations for the evaluation of hydrogen embrittlement, stress-corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue with an emphasis on fracture mechanics methodologies for metals. An overview on the environmentally assisted crack growth of polymers is also included. The article details the evaluation of nanoscale environmental effects and indentation-induced cohesive cracking. It also provides information on scanning probe microscopy.

This article provides a brief description of the different types of micromechanisms of monotonic and cyclic fracture. General information on the material variables that have the most beneficial effect on resistance to failure is presented. The article discusses the various stages, growth rates, and striation spacings of fatigue crack. The mechanisms of fatigue striation formation are also discussed. The fatigue crack growth in duplex microstructures and cyclic crack growth in polymers are reviewed. The article also describes the mechanisms and models of fatigue crack closure.

The overarching goal of life-prediction research is to develop models for the various types of time dependencies in the crack-tip damage accumulation that occur in materials subjected to elevated temperatures. This article focuses on describing the models based on creep, oxidation kinetics, evolution of crack-tip stress fields due to creep, oxygen ingress, and change in the microstructure. It also provides a summary of creep-fatigue modeling approaches.

This article describes the types of closure mechanisms, including plasticity-induced, roughness-induced, oxide-induced, and fretting-debris-induced. It discusses test techniques used to establish a valid threshold value for aluminum alloy crack growth thresholds, steel crack growth thresholds, and titanium alloy crack growth thresholds. The near-threshold behavior of nickel-base superalloys is described. The article briefly reviews the threshold results for fiber-reinforced, whisker-reinforced, and particulate-re-inforced metal-matrix alloys. It explains the near-threshold fatigue crack propagation in welded joints and the fundamental considerations for modeling threshold behavior. The article concludes with a discussion on the effects of thresholds in the engineering design process.

This article reviews the various types of mechanical testing methods, including hardness testing; tension testing; compression testing; dynamic fracture testing; fracture toughness testing; fatigue life testing; fatigue crack growth testing; and creep, stress-rupture, and stress-relaxation testing. Shear testing, torsion testing, and formability testing are also discussed. The discussion of tension testing includes information about stress-strain curves and the properties described by them.

This article provides an overview of key thermal spray coatings used in compressors, combustors, and turbine sections of a power-generation gas turbine. It describes the critical components, including combustors, transition ducts, inlet nozzle guide vanes, and first-stage rotating airfoils. Design requirements are reviewed and compared between aerospace and power generation coatings. Application process improvement areas are also discussed as a method of reducing component cost.

This article presents an overview of fatigue crack nucleation from the point of view of the material microstructure and its evolution during cycling. It describes the sites of microcrack nucleation at the free surfaces. The article discusses the relation of dislocation structures and surface relief and reviews the mechanisms of crack nucleation. The damage of material due to crack nucleation, the extent (in terms of the number of cycles) of the nucleation stage, and the factors influencing crack nucleation are discussed.

This article focuses on the corrosion fatigue testing of steel in high-temperature water and discusses critical experimental issues associated with it. It provides information on the fundamental aspects of environmental crack advancement in general. The article explains the concepts and role of environmentally assisted crack growth in corrosion fatigue. It also discusses the fatigue test methods, including crack initiation testing and crack propagation testing. The article describes the specific types and influence rankings of experimental variables in corrosion fatigue.

This article provides an overview of the safety aspects and integrity concept for pressure vessels, piping, and tubing. It focuses on the fracture mechanics approaches used to validate components with longitudinal cracks and circumferential cracks and to analyze crack growth behavior under cyclic loading. Full-scale testing facilities and the typical test results required for various applications are discussed. The article also presents information on the transferability of mechanical properties of materials.

An integral aspect of designing and material selection is the use of mechanical properties derived from various mechanical testing. This article introduces the basic concepts of mechanical design and its relation with the properties derived from various mechanical testings, namely, tensile, compressive, hardness, torsion and bend, shear load, shock, and fatigue and creep testings. It describes the design criteria for combined properties derived from each of the mechanical testing. The article concludes with a discussion on the effect of environment on the mechanical properties.

This article provides a review of fatigue test methodologies and an overview of general fatigue behavior, fatigue crack initiation and fatigue crack propagation of advanced engineering plastics. It also describes the factors affecting fatigue performance of polymers and concludes with information on fractography, a useful tool in failure analysis.

Stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) occurs under service conditions, which can result, often without any prior warning, in catastrophic failure. Hydrogen embrittlement is distinguished from stress-corrosion cracking generally by the interactions of the specimens with applied currents. To determine the susceptibility of alloys to SCC and hydrogen embrittlement, several types of testing are available. This article describes the constant extension testing, constant load testing, constant strain-rate testing for smooth specimens and precracked or notched specimens of SCC. It provides information on the cantilever beam test, wedge-opening load test, contoured double-cantilever beam test, three-point and four-point bend tests, rising step-load test, disk-pressure test, slow strain-rate tensile test, and potentiostatic slow strain-rate tensile test for hydrogen embrittlement.

Catastrophic failure best typifies the characteristic behavior of brittle solids in the presence of cracks or crack-like flaws under ambient conditions. This article provides a description of the concepts of fracture mechanics of brittle solids and focuses on the various testing methods developed to characterize the fracture behavior of brittle solids with examples. These include the fracture toughness test method and R-curve test method at ambient and elevated temperatures. The article also includes information on the evaluation of fracture-toughness test results and the behavior of R-curve.

Fretting is a special wear process that occurs at the contact area between two materials under load and subject to slight relative movement by vibration or some other force. During fretting fatigue, cracks can initiate at very low stresses, well below the fatigue limit of nonfretted specimens. This article describes the mechanisms of fretting and fretting fatigue; stress analysis, modeling, and prediction of fretting fatigue; fretting fatigue testing; and fretting prevention methods. Three general geometries and loading conditions for fretting fatigue, along with their remedies, are reviewed.

This article begins with a review of the purposes of mechanical characterization tests and the general considerations related to the mechanical properties of anisotropic systems, specimen fabrication, equipment and fixturing, environmental conditioning, and analysis of test results. It provides information on the specimen preparation, instrumentation, and procedures for various mechanical test methods of fiber-reinforced composites. These include the compression test, flexure test, shear test, open hole tension test, and compression after impact test. The article describes three distinct fracture modes, namely, crack opening mode, shearing mode, and tearing mode. It presents an overview of fatigue testing and fatigue damage mechanisms of composite materials and reviews the types of mechanical measurements that can be made during the course of testing to assess fatigue damage. The article concludes with a discussion on the split-Hopkinson pressure bar test.