PSI - Issue 33

Jesús Toribio et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 33 (2021) 1123–1130 Jesús Toribio / Procedia Structural Integrity 00 (2021) 000–000

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1. Introduction The concept of structural integrity admits different length scales of analysis ( giga, mega, macro, micro and nano) that can be used in the framework of multi-scale approaches. This paper tries to clarify this important issue by

broadening the amplitude of the definition of structural integrity . 2. Fracture & Structural Integrity: Past, Present and Future

As explained in a previous paper (Toribio, 2020), in Europe the European Group on Fracture (EGF, 1987) evolved (EGF, 1989) towards the newer concept of structural integrity (EGF, 1990). The leaders of this successful process were Professor Dominique Francois and Professor Keith Miller, as described by the former in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Eleventh European Conference of Fracture ECF11 (Francois, 1996). At a bigger scale on analysis, the International Congress on Fracture (ICF) was created through the vision of Takeo Yokobori in Sendai (Japan) in 1965 (Taplin and Saxena, 2011) and a new global brand descriptor of the ICF society was proposed during the meeting of the ICF Executive Committee (ICF ExCo) held in Anaheim (USA) during May 2011 (Fig. 1): “The International Congress on Fracture: The World Academy of Structural Integrity” (ICF-WASI), as reported by Carpinteri et al. (2011). After long-standing debate, this concept finally did not go further at the General Council in the framework of the 13 th International Conference on Fracture (ICF13) held in Bejing during June 2013 (ICF13, 2013), although fruitful ideas were raised on the contrast between the concepts on material and structure.

Fig. 1. Picture of the meeting held in May 2011 in Anaheim (USA) of the International Congress of Fracture Executive Committee (ICF ExCo). From left to right (standing up): Mimoun Elboujdaini, Ravi Chona, Jesús Toribio and Takashi Kuriyama. From left to right (seating down): Susanne Bachofer, Alberto Carpinteri, David Taplin, Paul Paris and Shouwen Yu. 3. Fracture & Structural Integrity: A Multi-Scale Approach 3.1. Giga-Structural Integrity At the bigger scale one can imagine in Earth, and in the field of geology ( plate tectonics ), the term fault is used to design a fracture phenomenon, usually plane, in the soil, after relative displacement of two blocks, thereby creating a real giga-crack in mode II (Fig. 2) and allowing the use of the term giga-structural integrity to describe this kind of phenomena affecting the integrity of the Earth itself.