James C. Newman is an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and

materials scientist Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

known for his work on

fracture Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...

and

fatigue Fatigue is a state of tiredness (which is not sleepiness), exhaustion or loss of energy. It is a signs and symptoms, symptom of any of various diseases; it is not a disease in itself. Fatigue (in the medical sense) is sometimes associated wit ...

for

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

vehicles.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

has listed him as a "Superstar of Modern Aeronautics". He is known for his work in safety analysis of structures, and pioneered the finite element studies of planar cracks in three-dimensional finite bodies, and the development of extensive

stress intensity factor In fracture mechanics, the stress intensity factor () is used to predict the Stress (mechanics), stress state ("stress intensity") near the tip of a Fracture, crack or Notch (engineering), notch caused by a remote load or residual stresses. It i ...

equations. These solutions are now considered to be classic contributions to

Fracture Mechanics Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...

, and are used as benchmarks for new crack

stress analysis Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology) Stress, whether physiological, biological or psychological, is an organism's response to a stressor, such as an environmental condition or change in life circumstances. When s ...

methods. He developed the theory for predicting ''plasticity induced crack closure'' and software Fastran, which is widely used in the

aircraft industry An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its e ...

. In 2001, Newman left NASA for a professorship at

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Mississippi State, Mississippi, Un ...

, where he developed a Fatigue and Fracture Laboratory and a new ASTM fracture standard (E-2472).ASTM fracture
/ref> Many of the stress-intensity-factor solutions for crack configurations in the ASTM fatigue-crack growth and fracture standards were developed by Newman, along with stress-intensity-factor solutions and equations for three-dimensional crack configurations, such as surface cracks and corner cracks at holes. His life-prediction model and code FASTRAN is used to make life assessments of aircraft structures and is one of the life-prediction options in ''NASGRO''. FASTRAN was successfully used to predict the onset of widespread fatigue damage in simulated aircraft

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

components during the

/ FAA aging aircraft studies in the 1990s. He has pioneered the use of the critical crack-tip-opening-angle (CTOA) fracture criterion for aircraft structures, which was successfully used by Boeing-Long Beach to predict the residual strength of a damaged fuselage structure tested at

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...

within 5% of the failure pressure. Recently, he has promoted the use of the compression precracking test methods to generate fatigue-crack-growth threshold data without load-history effects.

References

External links

Official WebsiteGoogle Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newman, James C. Living people American materials scientists Year of birth missing (living people)