Most design engineers are tasked to design against failure, and one of the biggest causes of product failure is failure of the material due to fatigue/fracture. From leading experts in fracture mechanics, this new text provides new approaches and new applications to advance the understanding of crack initiation and propagation. With applications in composite materials, layered structures, and microelectronic packaging, among others, this timely coverage is an important resource for anyone studying or applying concepts of fracture mechanics.

Concise and easily understood mathematical treatment of crack tip fields (chapter 3) provides the basis for applying fracture mechanics in solving practical problems.

Unique coverage of bi-material interfacial cracks (chapter 8), with applications to commercially important areas of composite materials, layered structures, and microelectronic packaging.

A full chapter (chapter 9) on the cohesive zone model approach, which has been extensively used in recent years to simulate crack propagation.

A unified discussion of fracture criteria involving nonlinear/plastic deformations