Introduction to Life Prediction Methodologies for Materials and Structures

In his book "Citadelle" Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote "Intelligence examines the material while the mind only sees the ship". Such a quote sets the context of this issue of ONERA’s Aerospace Lab Journal entitled "Life prediction Methodologies for Materials and Structures" very well. In order to predict the mechanical integrity and lifetime of complex components and structures, it is essential to understand the physical mechanisms that control local deformation and damage phenomena at the relevant scales in the material. This issue of the Aerospace Lab Journal addresses this problem by providing a forum for some of the leading members of the mechanics of materials community to report on recent theoretical and computational modeling approaches to describe the mechanics of materials at scales ranging from the atomistic, through the microstructure, and up to the continuum. A broad range of materials and physical phenomena are addressed, including metallic and composite materials, dislocation behavior, crystallographic slip, fatigue and damage, and other macroscopic and structural behavior.