An extension of fracture mechanics/technology to larger and smaller cracks/defects
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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Full-field Strain Measurements for Microstructurally Small Fatigue Crack Propagation Using Digital Image Correlation Method
Published on: January 16, 2019
1Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Aoba 6-6-01, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan. abe@abe.mech.tohoku.ac.jp
Abstract:
Fracture mechanics/technology is a key science and technology for the design and integrity assessment of the engineering structures. However, the conventional fracture mechanics has mostly targeted a limited size of cracks/defects, say of from several hundred microns to several tens of centimeters. The author and his group has tried to extend that limited size and establish a new version of fracture technology for very large cracks used in geothermal energy extraction and for very small cracks/defects or damage often appearing in the combination of mechanical and electronic components of engineering structures. Those new versions are reviewed in this paper.
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