The Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium was launched in the early eighties. It began during a particularly lean period in the American economy. But its success is linked as much to the need to be in touch with the rapidly changing currents of the philosophical climate as with the need to insure an adequately stocked professional community in the Philadelphia area faced, perhaps permanently, with the threat of increasing attrition. The member schools of the Consortium now include Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Villanova University, that is, the...

Over the past few years, we have made numerous presentations, delivered several series of lectures, and participated in many discussions on the processes of time-dependent crack growth. We felt that the understanding of these processes had reached a degree of maturity: the basic physical principles were established and their application to engineering practice was now feasible. We concluded that the best way to organize this knowledge was to write it up in a single, coherent system. Martinus Nijhoff kindly encouraged us and generously offered their collaboration. Hence, this book. The...

19th Canadian Fracture Conference, Ottawa, Ontario, May 29-31, 1989

The understanding of time dependent crack propagation processes occupies a central place in the study of fracture. It also encompasses a wide range of conditions: failure under sustained loading in a corrosive environment, fracture under cyclic loading in non-degrading and in corrosive environment, and rupture at high temperature. This list covers probably 90% of the failures that occur in engineering practice. The process of time dependent fracture is controlled by the physics of atomic interaction changes; it is strongly influenced by the micro structure; and affected by the interaction of...