Font Size: 

The concept of configurational forces is a powerful computational tool for the quantitativedescription of the behavior of defects in materials and structural components. It enables us(1) to evaluate the crack driving force in arbitrary micro- or macroscopicallyinhomogeneous materials and components,(2) to take into account the influences of eigenstrains and residual stresses,(3) to assess the shielding and anti-shielding effects of near-tip and remote plasticity,(4) to estimate the crack growth direction using the criterion of maximum dissipation.