Designing new structural materials, extending lifetimes and guarding
against fracture in service are among the preoccupations of engineers,
and to deal with these they need to have command of the mechanics of
material behaviour. The first volume of this two-volume work deals with
elastic and elastoplastic behaviour; this second volume continues with
viscoelasticity, damage, fracture (resistance to cracking) and contact
mechanics. As in Volume I, the treatment starts from the active
mechanisms on the microscopic scale and develops the laws of macroscopic
behaviour. Chapter I deals with viscoplastic behaviour, as shown, for
example, at low temperatures by the effects of oscillatory loads and at
high temperatures by creep under steady load. Chapter 2 treats damage
phenomena encountered in all materials - for example, metals, polymers,
glasses, concretes - such as cavitation, fatigue and stress-corrosion
cracking. Chapter 3 treats those concepts of fracture mechanics that are
needed for the understanding of resistance to cracking and Chapter 4
completes the volume with a survey of the main concepts of contact
mechanics. As with Volume I, each chapter has a set of exercises,
either with solutions or with indications of how to attack the problem;
and there are many explanatory diagrams and other illustrations.