Book excerpt: The first book of Failure Analysis Case Studies selected from volumes 1, 2 and 3 of the journal Engineering Failure Analysis was published by Elsevier Science in September 1998. The book has proved to be a sought-after and widely used source of reference material to help people avoid or analyse engineering failures, design and manufacture for greater safety and economy, and assess operating, maintenance and fitness-for-purpose procedures. In the last three years, Engineering Failure Analysis has continued to build on its early success as an essential medium for the publication of failure analysis cases studies and papers on the structure, properties and behaviour of engineering materials as applied to real problems in structures, components and design.Failure Analysis Case Studies II comprises 40 case studies describing the analysis of real engineering failures which have been selected from volumes 4, 5 and 6 of Engineering Failure Analysis. The case studies have been arranged in sections according to the specific type of failure mechanism involved. The failure mechanisms covered are overload, creep, brittle fracture, fatigue, environmental attack, environmentally assisted cracking and bearing failures. The book constitutes a reference set of real failure investigations which should be useful to professionals and students in most branches of engineering.