Failure Mechanisms 
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   Introduction

   Brittle Fracture
      Plasticity Effects
      Atomic Model

   Ductile Fracture
      Polymers

   Fatigue
      Anelastic Materials
      Fatigue Models
      Stage II Fracture
      Random Loading

   Creep
      Creep Diagrams

   Design Issues
      Fast Fracture
      Ductile Fracture
      Fatigue
      Creep

When used outside a set of safe conditions,
materials can fail and end the useful life of a
component or system. Normally, this is a situation that must be avoided in engineering systems. However, in some cases, failure is a design feature. The canning industry relies on material fracture to permit easy access to the canned product, and the protection of high pressure containers with "burst discs" averts the more dangerous failure of a pressure vessel explosion.

In this section, the mechanisms of ductile and
brittle fracture, fatigue fracture, and creep will be explored.