When Dr. Halford and I undertook to write this book, more than two decades ago, we intended that it be all-inclusive, covering our experience in the subject of fatigue and durability. We intended that it all be in one volume. As we prepared it during the ensuing years, it became clear that the subject was too broad to be contained in one volume, especially if we were to include the relevant work of our colleagues in other institutions, even in other countries. We decided that at least two volumes would be needed, with this second volume to be dedicated to high-temperature aspects, which are gaining more and more attention with the technology expanding in that direction.

This second volume gave Dr. Halford the opportunity to address in greater depth two subjects that were of intense interest to him: treatment of strain-range partitioning using the total strain-range approach (so that the application could be extended to cases involving small strains), and devoting more discussion to applications of our new technology to practical problems on which he was daily assisting industry. We intended each of these subjects to cover long chapters. He did write most of these two chapters, but his untimely passing prevented him from completing them. On Oct. 25, 2006, he passed away. I have not altered the chapters; therefore, the volume is left diminished by the sad turn of events. The entire field covered by his work is left deprived by his passing. And, I have been deprived of a colleague, and a dear friend.

The passing of Dr. Halford before the book was completed necessitated many changes in the final processing. His numerous colleagues and my former students kindly volunteered to be as helpful as they could to complete the final editing. I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to the following for their gracious contributions throughout the writing of this book and especially in the final editing:

Dr. Sissay Hailu

Dr. Michael Mitchell

Dr. Ramesh Kalluri

Dr. Robert Bill

Kejin Jung

Marvin Hirschberg (Dec)

And, of course, the ASM technical editor Steven Lampman