Special Topics: DGM/DVM Working Party Materials Fatigue

During more than 150 years, the field of materials fatigue research has never lost its technical significance and its inspiring potential to tailor microstructures for high-loaded engineering materials. In particular, the reliability of lightweight structures, being a key issue in automotive and aeronautics industries, benefits from the development of structural integrity concepts. While the classical “total life” (Wöhler approach) and “damage tolerant” (fracture mechanics approach) concepts were first applied to metallic structures, today, the fatigue behavior of hybrid structures including joints between carbon or glass-fiber reinforced epoxies and metals becomes more and more important. Researchers and engineers have to deal with new kinds of failure mechanism, which become even more complex when variations in the operation atmosphere have to be taken into account. Since due to atmosphere effects fatigue mechanisms are rather time dependent, the testing of structures to be designed for long-term operation is very difficult to interpret. The six papers of the present special topics give insight in current fatigue research that was presented and discussed during recent meetings of the DGM/DVM working party Materials Fatigue. As a result of the merger between two technical committees on the materials behavior under cyclic loading of DGM and DVM almost 20 years ago, the working party Materials Fatigue represent the important link between microstructural changes during fatigue loading of materials and the development/practical application of structural integrity concepts. Meetings are held twice a year at industrial enterprises, research centers, or universities, focusing particularly on the discussion of research work in progress. Hence, students and young scientists are generally encouraged to contribute to the working party, which is open to anybody being interested in the field of materials fatigue. Contact: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Biallas, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Ulrich Krupp, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück. Ulrich Krupp