The first publication of its kind to introduce state-of-the-art applications of damage mechanics to fatigue and fracture issues in broad classes of materials.

13 peer-reviewed papers from the world's leading researchers in the field cover the following comprehensive areas:

Damage Mechanics of Composites -- 6 papers deal with varying aspects of modeling damage in composite materials.

Distribution Effects and Homogenization -- Issues related to the scaling of effects of distributed damage on behavior at a higher length scale are explored in 3 papers.

Local Approaches to Fatigue and Fracture -- 4 papers present application examples of Continuum Damage Mechanics, including impact damage, particle erosion damage, and fracture of weldments.