Observations on the Fracture of Viscoelastic Bodies

The Bueche-Halpin theory for the fracture of viscoelastic bodies is extended to predict the statistical variability of rupture data for both uniform and nonuniform excitation histories. The concept of cumulative damage is examined in light of some critical experimentation. It is shown that the geometry of the distribution is a sensitive "functional" of the excitation history and that the solution of this problem is the key step in the develop ment of a general theory for fatigue.