New Releases by Steven Johnson

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As fatigue and fracture mechanics approaches are used more often for determining the useful life and/or inspection intervals for complex structures, realization sets-in that all factors are not well known or characterized. Indeed, inherent scatter exists in initial material quality and in material performance. Furthermore, projections of component usage in determination of applied stresses are inexact at best and are subject to much discrepancy between projected and actual usage. Even the models for predicting life contain inherent sources of error based on assumptions and/or empirically fitted parameters. All of these factors need to be accounted for to determine a distribution of potential lives based on combination of the aforementioned variables, as well as other factors. The purpose of this symposium was to create a forum for assessment of the state-of-the-art in incorporating these uncertainties and inherent scatter into systematic probabilistic methods for conducting life assessment.

In the groundbreaking tradition of "Complexity" and "The Society of Mind, " visionary guru Johnson makes sense of the cutting-edge theory of emergence and demonstrates its relevance in today''s--and tomorrow''s--world. Illustrations.

The increased numbers of bonded composite components and bonded repairs of cracked structures make knowledge of adhesive bonding crucial to aircraft design and life extension. This report covers an effort which focused on using fracture mechanics to evaluate the Mode I fracture and fatigue properties of several adhesively bonded aerospace material systems. The research concentrated on bond line cracking rather than fatigue crack growth in composite or metal adherends. Particular attention was paid to the environmental durability of bonded systems in use or intended for use on transport, fighter, and supersonic aircraft. Analysis was performed using closed-form solutions as well as finite element analyses. Results were discussed with respect to their relevance and applicability to bonded joint design. Key results include the identification of significant degradation in some varieties of bonded joints subjected to long-term isothermal exposure under hot/wet conditions. The degradation was manifested by decreased fracture toughness and fatigue threshold levels. Finite element analyses were performed on specimens with dissimilar adherends having complex geometries and thermally induced stresses in the bond line. A case study in which finite element analyses were used to relate the experimental results from this program with those of an independent project is also included. The analyses highlight the importance of using tapered adherends to avoid fatigue failures and show that typical aircraft skin stresses are below experimentally obtained threshold values for the specimen geometries investigated. Results of this study emphasize that the environmental durability of adhesively bonded joints is a key issue which must be considered by aerospace design engineers.

Papers presented at the March 1994 symposium are organized into five sections that progress from basic understanding of mechanical damage mechanisms and environmental effects to life prediction methodology. Five papers discuss the interplay between interfacial strength, residual thermal stresses, an

Of interest to researchers and practitioners in materials science, especially in the aerospace industry, 16 papers from a symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, November 1988 discuss the analysis, modeling, and behavior of both continuous and discontinuous ceramic and metal matrix composites, and methods of