9301986 Gokhale The objective of this research is to develop general, unbiased, efficient and practical stereological procedures for the quantitative characterization of fracture surfaces and microstructural features in three dimensional space from measurements performed on l=lane sections or projected images. This research involves analytical theoretical work, computer simulations, computer-aided sampling experiments, software development and experimental measurements. Emphasis is on: (1) local topographic features on fracture profiles directly from digitized profile coordinate data; (2) topographic features related to crack closure in metal alloys experiencing fatigue loading; (3) quantitative analysis of microcrack fatigue damage in metal-matrix composites; (4) sampling tests on digitized fracture profile data to develop efficient sampling schemes. %%% This effort has practical applications in the description and analysis of topographic surfaces in several fields including materials science, biology, and botany. ***
