Reliability is concerned with failure. Unfortunately, it can only be measured by observing failure, and this implies that an accurate description of reliability can only be made after the materials in question have failed. The reliability of materials is directly influenced by every aspect of design and prototype testing, quality engineering and control, and subsequent maintenance, together with feedback of field performance.

In order to improve the reliability as well as performance, computer-aided micromechanical modeling, coupled with state-of-the-art fracture mechanics and fatigue experiments, are therefore being employed to establish the cracking behavior of airplane alloys based on titanium and nickel base superalloys during fatigue and creep processes.

Moreover, by modeling the microstructure response and evolution during thermomechanical processes based on alloy composition, strain, atmosphere, temperature, and time, we can obtain information on how to optimize processing conditions to make desired microstructures and properties for materials we are interested.