Abstract
For centuries man has been aware that the repeated applications of loads would lead to the early failure of materials. It came as something of a surprise, however, when he also found, more than a century ago, that failure occurred under stresses of low amplitude, lower than the ultimate tensile strength σ u and even of the yield strength σ y of the material. The phenomenon, known as fatigue, has been long studied since there are very few events, other than fatigue, that can cause every year so many failures, sometimes catastrophic also for the casualties involved. This Chapter will address the issue of fatigue from a phenomenological point of view aiming at unfolding why, how and through what successive fundamental steps fatigue is actually developing and eventually destroying the material.
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Milella, P.P. (2013). Nature and Phenomenology of Fatigue. In: Fatigue and Corrosion in Metals. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2336-9_1
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