Publisher's Synopsis
Environment Assisted Fatigue (or corrosion fatigue) is a complex subject attracting researchers with backgrounds in chemistry, metallurgy and mechanical engineering. The conference held at Sheffield University in the Spring of 1988 in this subject was no exception to this multi-disciplinary trait.;Interests ranged from detailed analyses of mechanisms of how cracks nucleate and grow through to heavy engineering applications where the objective is to ensure adequate service life and avoid costly and potentially dangerous service failures.;Rotating and reciprocating machinery subject to cyclic loading usually function for some or all of the desired design life in environments which are "corrosive" to a greater or lesser degree. The higher the penalty of failure in economic or safety terms, the greater is the incentive to unserstand and minimize crack nucleation and growth by corrosion fatigue. Thus, it is not surprising that much of the incentive to do research on the subject is provided by the aerospace, nuclear, electricity supply and oil production industries. The main emphasis is, of course, on identifying and avoiding in practice poor combinations of stress, metallurgy and environmental chemistry and quantifying the kinetics of any residual damage mechanism as a basis for inspection and repair criteria.
