Fatigue fracture of the Björk–Shiley heart valve strut and failure diagnosis from acoustic signatures

On June 26 2006, a 55-passenger motorcoach, operated by a local food-industry and carrying 14 passengers, was travelling on the two-lane national road EO-90 Chania-Iraklion westbound, in the island of Creta, Greece. The same day, a road tanker consisting of a two-axle tractor and a three-axle semitrailer aluminium tanker, loaded with JETA1 fuel was travelling westbound on the same national road. As the bus approached milepost 64.7 km, it slowed down to the right side of the highway until a secondary stop, for a passenger to depart, and while restarting the oncoming road tanker collided at the bus back. Three passengers and the truck driver were killed, and six passengers received serious injuries. The accident investigation and reconstruction in accordance with the application of the European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR), and the criteria which could be adopted to judge risk acceptability, are discussed.

G. C. Sih

Papers

Multiple Hierarchical Scale‐Dependency on Physical Mechanisms of Material Damage: Macromechanical, Microstructural and Nanochemical