Physics of strength and fracture control: Adaptation of engineering materials and structures

Abstract

Still passive and for the most part uncontrollable, current systems intended to ensure the reliability and durability of engineering structures are still in their developmental infancy. They cannot make corrections or recondition materials, and most material and structural failures cannot be predicted. Accidents-and catastrophes-result. Physics of Strength and Fracture Control: Adaptation of Engineering Materials and Structures introduces a new physical concept in the science of the resistance of materials to external effects, a concept that opens completely new avenues for improving the strength and safety of engineered objects. Based on a thermodynamic equation of state of solids derived by the author, the approach provides a general methodology for treating all the physical and mechanical properties of materials, regardless of their nature and physical state. The author shows that this approach enables the control of the stressed-deformed state both to prevent failures and fractures and to promote them for easier shaping of materials. He uses this methodology to present and discuss non-traditional but practical ways of solving real-world problems. Of enormous theoretical and practical significance, this groundbreaking work ushers in a new stage in the science of material strength. It opens the door to systematic ways to design materials, control their operating properties, and predict their behavior under specific operating conditions.