The book has a good review of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) which flows nicely into Elastic-Plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM). At the time of this review, I am using guidelines from the book to determine applicability of LEFM and/or EPFM methods to aerospace structure which I am currently analyzing for flaw growth under cyclic loading. The examples are very practical; in particular, I gained a considerable understanding in the author's analytical solutions demonstrating the calculation of the "J integral".
Although I have no need for it at this time, for those of you with interest in creep considerations in fracture mechanics, there is a large section of the book devoted to that topic.
The last chapter deals with several "Case Studies", which (except for one) are hypothetical, but give excellent examples of procedures for performing fracture mechanics analysis on structures in very realistic situations.
The only reason I didn't give it five "stars" was that the artwork/illustrations were not quite on par with other writings on the subject.
