The development and current state-of-the-art in fracture mechanics in relation to studies of environment-enhanced fatigue-crack growth (corrosion fatigue) and fatigue-crack growth per se are reviewed. Patterns of response of materials to different loading and environmental conditions are considered in terms of the probable mechanisms for environmental embrittlement. The usefulness of the fractu...

Irradiation-induced hardening is an important phenomenon concerning the nuclear reactor safety, because it induces the embrittlement of reactor pressure vessel steels. This phenomenon, however, can also be applied for the modification of hardness of alloys. In the case of FeCu alloys, we have reported that GeV heavy-ion irradiation remarkably increases the hardness [1]. Volkov et al. have expla...

Recent investigations have revealed that Pb-free solder joints may be fragile, prone to premature interfacial failure particularly under shock loading, as initially formed or tend to become so under moderate thermal aging. Depending on the solder pad surface finish, different mechanisms are clearly involved, but none of the commonly used surface finishes appear to be consistently immune to embr...

Nuclear analyses have been performed for the baseline design of the Fusion Ignition Research Experiment (FIRE). Nuclear heating, structural radiation damage, and magnet insulator dose were evaluated. Critical issues requiring additional R&D effort include low-temperature embrittlement of copper and identifying insulators that can handle a dose as high as 1.5x10 Rads under the FIRE load conditio...

Current research concentrates on the impact properties of a particle reinforced polymer matrix composite material. The composite material consists of unsaturated polyester resin that is reinforced with aluminium hydroxide. Aluminium hydroxide acts as the hard phase and polyester as the binding agent. The aim of the work was to understand how the particle size and the filler material’s mass frac...