The International Symposium "Fatigue under Thermal and Mechanical Loading", held at Petten (The Netherlands) on May 22-24, 1995, was jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Materials of The Joint Research Centre, E. C. , and by the Societe Fran~se de Metallurgie et de Materiaux. The fast heating and cooling cycles experienced by many high temperature components cause thermally induced stresses, which often operate in combination with mechanical loads. The resulting thermal / mechanical fatigue cycle leads to material degradation mechanisms and failure modes typical of service cycles. The growing awareness that the synergism between the combined thermal and mechanical loads can not be reproduced by means of isothermal tests, has resulted in an increasing interest in thermal and thermo-mechanical fatigue testing. This trend has been reinforced by the constant pull by industry for more performant, yet safer high temperature systems, pushing the materials to the limit of their properties. Dedicated ASTM meetings in particular have set the scene for this area of research. The proceedings of the symposium organized by D. A. Spera and D. F. Mowbray in 1975 provided a reference book on thermal fatigue which reflects the knowledge and experimental capabilities of the mid-seventies.

The International Symposium "Fatigue under Thermal and Mechanical Loading", held at Petten (The Netherlands) on May 22-24, 1995, was jointly organized by the Institute for Advanced Materials of The Joint Research Centre, E. C. , and by the Societe Fran~se de Metallurgie et de Materiaux. The fast heating and cooling cycles experienced by many high temperature components cause thermally induced stresses, which often operate in combination with mechanical loads. The resulting thermal / mechanical fatigue cycle leads to material degradation mechanisms and failure modes typical of service cycles. The growing awareness that the synergism between the combined thermal and mechanical loads can not be reproduced by means of isothermal tests, has resulted in an increasing interest in thermal and thermo-mechanical fatigue testing. This trend has been reinforced by the constant pull by industry for more performant, yet safer high temperature systems, pushing the materials to the limit of their properties. Dedicated ASTM meetings in particular have set the scene for this area of research. The proceedings of the symposium organized by D. A. Spera and D. F. Mowbray in 1975 provided a reference book on thermal fatigue which reflects the knowledge and experimental capabilities of the mid-seventies.

This volume contains a selection of peer-reviewed papers presented at the International Conference on Temperature-Fatigue Interaction, held in Paris, May 29-31, 2001, organised by the Fatigue Committee of the Societe Francaise de Metallurgie et de Materiaux (SF2M), under the auspices of the European Structural Integrity Society.
The conference disseminated recent research results and promoting the interaction and collaboration amongst materials scientists, mechanical engineers and design engineers. Many engineering components and structures used in the automotive, aerospace, power generation and many other industries experience cyclic mechanical loads at high temperature or temperature transients causing thermally induced stresses. The increase of operating temperature and thermal mechanical loading trigger the interaction with time-dependent phenomena such as creep and environmental effects (oxidation, corrosion).
A large number of metallic materials were investigated including aluminium alloys for the automotive industry, steels and cast iron for the automotive industry and materials forming, stainless steels for power plants, titanium, composites, intermetallic alloys and nickel base superalloys for aircraft industry, polymers.
Important progress was observed in testing practice for high temperature behaviour, including environment and thermo-mechanical loading as well as in observation techniques.
A large problem which was emphasized is to know precisely service loading cycles under non-isothermal conditions. This was considered critical for numerous thermal fatigue problems discussed in this conference.

"