About the Author

Jaime Tupiassú Pinho de Castro is a professional Mechanical Engineer and a Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil, since 1977. He obtained his B.Sc. at PUC-Rio in 1973, his M.Sc. at PUC-Rio in 1977, his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982, and Post-Doctorate at MIT in 1983, all in Mechanical Engineering. Specialist in Fatigue, Fracture, Structural Integrity Evaluation, Experimental Mechanics, and Mechanical Design, he published more than 350 scientific works in peer-reviewed journals and congress proceedings, having received several scientific awards and academic honors. He advised 39 M.Sc., Ph.D., and Post-Doctorate students, and taught over 130 graduate and undergraduate Solid Mechanics courses in the areas of fatigue, fracture, mechanical behavior of materials, stress analysis, and machine elements, having been honored by his graduating students more than 25 times. He also lectured dozens of lato-sensu graduate courses for the Industry. He is co-author of ViDa 3D, an academic software to automate fatigue design under service loads, and of this book's Portuguese version published in 2009. Marco Antonio Meggiolaro is a professional Mechanical Engineer and a Professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) since 2000. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at PUC-Rio in 1994 and 1996, and his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT in 2000, all in Mechanical Engineering. Specialist in Fatigue, Fracture and Robotics, he published more than 300 scientific works in peer-reviewed journals and congress proceedings, and advised more than 50 M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses. He is co-author of the ViDa 3D academic software to automate fatigue design under service loads, and of this book's Portuguese version published in 2009. Marco taught over 65 graduate and undergraduate courses in the areas of Solid Mechanics and Control, especially in Fatigue, Digital Control and Robotics, having received several scientific awards and academic honors.