ENME E4114: Mechanics of Fracture and Fatigue

Course Overview

This graduate-level course offers a comprehensive study of the principles and applications of fracture (continuum mechanics) and fatigue (engineering design) in engineering materials, emphasizing their critical roles in the safe and reliable design of structural failure-critical components. 

The course begins with an overview of material failure modes, followed by a detailed examination of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), including stress intensity factors, energy release rates, crack-tip plasticity, and fracture dynamics. The course will also present elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM), exploring the J-integral and crack growth resistance (R-curves) for materials that exhibit significant plastic deformation.

The fatigue portion of the course addresses both high-cycle and low-cycle fatigue, with emphasis on crack initiation, microstructural influences, and propagation mechanisms under cyclic loading. Life prediction methods such as stress-life (S-N), strain-life (ε-N), and fracture mechanics-based approaches, such as Paris’ Law, are thoroughly explored. Advanced topics include variable amplitude loading, mean stress effects, residual stresses, and fatigue in complex structures and materials. Environmental effects such as corrosion fatigue and creep-fatigue interaction are also discussed.

Throughout the course, you will engage with real-world case studies from industries such as aerospace, automotive, naval, energy, and civil infrastructure to understand how fracture and fatigue failures occur and how they can be prevented through robust design and material selection. A deep dive into practical fracture and fatigue testing at the Carleton Laboratory will allow you to experience advanced experimental mechanics, fatigue testing, and fractography on engineering materials. 

By the end of this course, you will be equipped with the tools and knowledge necessary to predict and mitigate failure in engineering components subjected to complex service conditions.

Course Instructor

Adrian Brügger

Director of Robert A. W. Carleton Strength of Materials Laborator, Adjunct Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics & Research Scientist 

Adrian Brügger received his PhD in Civil Engineering from Columbia University, with a focus on mechanics of materials, engineering materials diffraction, and structural health monitoring in 2017. His research interests lie in the quantification of the internal mechanics of multibody systems in failure-critical structures using neutron diffraction (nDif). Brügger focuses particularly on using nDif on structures and materials critical to the built environment: general non-destructive stress measurement in infrastructure, residual stress and contact force mapping of multi-body systems, eigenstrain analysis of complex geometries under thermal loading, and phase change characterization of structural materials under high temperature (fire) conditions. Brügger maintains a strong collaborative relationship with both the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor as well as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. He serves as the instrument spokesperson for the future CUPI²D imaging beamline at the ORNL Second Target Station (STS).

Brügger also serves as the Director of the Robert A. W. Carleton Strength of Materials Laboratory at Columbia University - the preeminent experimental research center of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. In this capacity, he contributes to field projects focusing on major infrastructure health monitoring, damage detection, corrosion processes, and damage mitigation. This effort includes vibration instrumentation and condition assessments on various large bridges (Manhattan Bridge, Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Bosphorus Bridge) and sensitive structures (New York Times Building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frick Collection). Brügger has led numerous forensic materials testing projects for major global infrastructure.