Study—Liberty Ship Failures

Two new case studies Liberty Ship Failures (Chapter 1) and Use of Composites in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (Chapter 16)... 

The early study of brittle failures, notably those of the Liberty ships, indicated a temperature dependence. This can be illustrated by plotting both fracture stress (of) and yield stress (Oy) against temperature (Fig. 8.81). Below a certain temperature some materials exhibit a transition from ductile to brittle fracture mode. This temperature is known as the ductile-brittle transition temperature DBTT. 

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