ZAMM Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 85, No.

11, 792 (2005)

Book Review

Jean Lemaitre and Rodrigue Desmorat, Engineering

Damage Mechanics, Ductile, Creep, Fatigue, and Brittle
Failures, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg NewYork 2005,
XXIV, 380 pp. Hardcover, EUR 79.95, SFR 135.50, GBP
61.50, US $ 89.95, ISBN 3-540-21503-4
13 years after the rst edition of Lemaitres famous A
Course on Damage Mechanics a new book Engineering Damage Mechanics prepared by J. Lemaitre and R.
Desmorat is published. The book is a extended version (instead of approximately 200 pages now we have approximately 400 pages). The content is reorganized now we have
7 chapters (in the Course there were only 4 chapters). Many
new ideas are presented and discussed. So the book can be
recommended to all engineers and students of engineering
concerned with lifetime prediction and with the failure resistant design of structures, components, and processes (A.
Needleman). The book is an excellent comprehensive guide
to Damage Mechanics. The level of the parts of the book is
characterized by the apples:

Ductile failures, Low cycle fatigue, Creep, creep-fatigue

and dynamic failures, High cycle fatigue, and Failure of brittle and quasi-brittle materials. By these chapters it is demonstrated what has happened in the science during the last year
(and especially in Lemaitres group in Cachan and in the other
parts of France).
By the authors it is shown that the Engineering Damage
Mechanics get more and more application eld. This must
be underlined since many hopes have been existing till now
and one has the same open questions (or gaps) like 10-15
years ago (for example, the interlink between Damage and
Fracture Mechanics is till now not satisfying or the connection between the phenomenological and the microstructural
approach). But here the authors are not alone.
Finally, I wish the same success for the Engineering
Damage Mechanics as the previous Course. It will be
nice to helpful a new edition or a new text book showing
the progress in Damage Mechanics.
Halle (Saale)

H. Altenbach

one means easy to read, easy to apply,

two mean reading with attention and an application with
care,
three mean a more advanced theory needing a numerical
analysis.
There is only one problem the bibliography is very short
and the reader cannot get ideas for further reading.
The rst chapter reassembles the basic ideas of Continuum Damage Mechanics. Here one gets more or less classical
knowledge. It is shown that the Continuum Damage Mechanics can be applied if the theoretical background is satisfying
and the experimental identication/verication can be performed. Since during the last decade many numerical tools
for the damage analysis were developed the second chapter
gives an overview on the numerical approaches. The other
ve chapters are devoted to the following problems:

c 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim