The scope of activity within the Committee shall be the advancement of knowledge and understanding of fatigue and fracture phenomena by:

* Promoting research and development of, and education related to, methods to evaluate the fatigue and fracture characteristics of materials and structures;
* Developing standards, proposals, and, when necessary, emergency standards for evaluating fatigue and fracture behavior. The preparation of Standard Practices, Guides, Terminology, and Test Methods is included in this development;
* Sponsoring technical meetings and symposia either independently or cooperatively with other organizations;
* Coordinating the Committee's activities with those of organizations having mutual interests, including other relevant ASTM Committees and non-ASTM organizations.
The range of Committee interest includes all engineering applications in which materials, processed parts, components or complete assemblies are subjected to loadings that might result in degradation of material or loss of structural integrity. Specific areas of interest include:

* All phenomena related to cyclic deformation, damage accumulation, crack formation, crack growth, and fracture of either materials or structures;
* Physical deformation and fracture mechanisms;
* Constitutive modeling, stress and strain analysis ranging from global to local (e.g., the crack-tip vicinity), and fracture mechanics analysis;
* Models that relate loading, deformation, configuration and damage parameters to life and residual strength behavior;
* Fatigue and fracture behavior of welded, fastened, and bonded components or assemblies of metallic or composite materials;
* Relationships between fatigue and fracture behavior and: (a) material characteristics (e.g., microstructure; thermo-mechanical history; residual stresses), (2) design details (e.g., stress concentrations; construction methods) and (3) operational details (e.g., quality control procedures; fretting; wear; mechanical, chemical, thermal, and radiation environment); and
* Methods and procedures, including statistical analysis, by which fatigue and fracture characteristics may be described, evaluated, and detected.