What is Damage?

Damage in engineering systems is defined as intentional or unintentional changes to the material and/or geometric properties of these systems, including changes to the boundary conditions and system connectivity, which adversely affect the current or future performance of that system. All damage begins at the material level and, under appropriate loading scenarios, progresses to component and system level failure at various rates. Damage can occur in different ways:

1. Gradually (e.g. fatigue, creep, corrosion);
2. Suddenly and predictably (e.g. aircraft landings, planned explosions in confinement vessels); or
3. Suddenly and unpredictably (e.g. foreign-object-impact on turbine blades, earthquake-induced damage in civilian infrastructure, or battle damage to military equipment).

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Earthquake damage in the Phillipines