Fracture and fatigue failure in the Spanish codes for design of steel structures

This work describes from a Fracture Mechanics view the failure prevention approaches recently embodied in the European and Spanish codes for the design of steel structures. The codes formulate the design rules to prevent fatigue and fracture failures in terms of engineering practice, with the Fracture Mechanics foundations underlying them not being apparent. The design simplifications assumed are presented in the framework of Fracture Mechanics.