Fatigue

Description

The structural weakening, and eventual failure, of a material due to repeated stress. Fatigue may start as a microscopic crack that spreads until the material is too weak to carry the load. Fatigue life and fatigue strength are measurements of the time and load that a material can handle in repeated tension-compression cycles.

Synonyms and Related Terms

Ermüdung (Deut.); fatigue (Fr.); fadiga (Port.); fatigue life; materials fatigue; fatigue failure;

Sources Checked for Data in Record

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971

• Theodore J. Reinhart, 'Glossary of Terms', Engineered Plastics, ASM International, 1988

• Richard S. Lewis, Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 10th ed., 1993

• Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Dictionary of Fiber & Textile Technology (older version called Man-made Fiber and Textile Dictionary, 1965), Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Charlotte NC, 1990

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000