This book gives a comprehensive and thorough guide to the readers who are lost in the forest of fatigue of weld. It presents the clear fracture mechanics and material background of fatigue of weld by starting first from fatigue crack initiation, short crack and next by discussing long cracks, crack closure, crack growth and threshold, residual stress, stress concentration, stress intensity factor, J-integral, multiple cracks, weld geometries and defects, microstructural parameters including HAZ and cyclic stress-strain behavior. The authors have succeeded in treating all these mutually interacting important parameters in a unique distinct way of analysis.

Prof. Dr Uwe Zerbst, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), Berlin, Germany. The acronym IBESS stands for "Integrale Bruchmechanische Ermittlung der Schwingfestigkeit von Schweißverbindungen" which, translated from German, means "Integral fracture mechanics determination of the fatigue strength of welds". The method introduced in this study is the outcome of a German research cluster in which eight partners were involved. A list of them is found at the end of this study. The IBESS method is characterized by a number of partially novel aspects and elements of fracture mechanics applied to the evaluation of fatigue strength of welds.