The design of mechanical structures with predictable and improved durability cannot be achieved without a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of fatigue damage and more specifically the relationships between the microstructure of materials and their fatigue properties. Written by leading researchers in the field, this book, along with the complementary books Fatigue of Materials and Structures: Fundamentals and Application to Damage and Design (both also edited by Claude Bathias and André Pineau), provides an authoritative, comprehensive and unified treatment of the mechanics and micromechanisms of fatigue in metals, polymers and composites. Each chapter is devoted to one of the major classes of materials or to different types of fatigue damage, thereby providing overall coverage of the field.

This book deals with multiaxial fatigue, thermomechanical fatigue, fretting-fatigue, influence of defects on fatigue life, cumulative damage and damage tolerance, and will be an important and much used reference for students, practicing engineers and researchers studying fracture and fatigue in numerous areas of materials science and engineering, mechanical, nuclear and aerospace engineering.