The Fundamentals of Structural Integrity and Failure

Book excerpt: "The Fundamentals of Structural Integrity and Failure provides a comprehensive review of spent nuclear fuel integrity and the research work which has been carried out in the important area of spent nuclear fuel integrity management. Additionally, the authors review the key aspects of fatigue crack nucleation and the fracture mechanics of short- and long-crack growth, with emphasis on achieving total fatigue life prediction. The fundamental aspects of mathematical modeling, computation, measurement, and signal processing involved in the process of integrity assessment of engineering structures in the presence of uncertainty are presented. Following this, several proposed techniques for the detection of the defects in ferromagnetic steel components are analyzed. One of these possible approaches is based on the additional magnetization of the inspected zone to minimize magnetic heterogeneity, and another trend is concerned with new selective Eddy current probe development. The capabilities of nondestructive testing techniques based on coercive force measurements concerned with several new applications are discussed. This concluding work demonstrates the use of a judicious and effective method for detecting pressure vessel failures, applying Wiener filter concepts to noisy signals"--