Book excerpt: This reference guide or undergraduate text shows how to determine, by analyzing metallurgical failures, the validity of a product design. This revision of a successful work features new techniques in electron microscopy, testing fracture toughness, and fracture mechanics. Describes destructive and nondestructive techniques regarding their advantages, limitations, applications, and meaning. Written to be understood by all engineers concerned about component failure this edition approaches typical problem areas from a physical and mechanical viewpoint. Describes the relationship between the practical and the theoretical, so that failure analyses can best be resolved and failure recurrence prevented. Maintains English and SI units throughout.