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Failures of steel structures caused by brittle fracture has attracted the interest of engineers as early as the middle of the last century. Since that time a large number of such failures have been analyzed, and the statistics has been used to develop many methods for controlling the quality of metal and metal parts, and various standards have been suggested. However, many special features of fracture, especially brittle fracture, have not been investigated completely even today, evidence of which is emergencies on pipelines, aircraft, reservoirs, steel structures, etc. Today the designers and producers of metallic parts still lack a comprehensive scientific base for estimating the factors that cause brittle fracture, and therefore many specialists on brittle fracture and designers who choose materials for structures determine the effect of damage factors differently.The well-known scientist A. P. Gulyaev again attracted the attention of scientists and leaders of Russia to problems of brittle fracture and prevention of emergency situations. At the request of A. Lifshits, the Assistant to the President of Russia for Problems of the Economy, a conference devoted to this problem was conducted on April 24, 1996 in the Ministry of Science and Engineering Policy of the Russian Federation under the chairmanship of the First Deputy Minister L. I. Leont'ev. The conference was attended by 42 scientists and specialists engaged in problems of metal fracture from over 20 organizations and enterprises. A report was presented by A. P. Gulyaev.The reporter said that the problem is very broad and he approached it from the standpoint of a metals scientist representing only one aspect of the problem of failure of structures. He dwelled in detail on the difference between two kinds of damage in metals (steels), namely, tough and brittle disruption.All theoretical strength characteristics and norms for determining the fitness of a metal for various purposes can be referred only to tough ~racture and cannot characterize the resistance of the metal to brittle fracture. With this drawback, the determination of the breaking strength of a metal does not guarantee against the appearance of dangerous brittle fracture, because the mechanism of brittle fracture differs from that of tough fracture, which was clearly shown in the report. Gulyaev gave a few examples of unexpected failure in Russia and other countries in order to show that the known methods do not solve the problem of reliability.The participants in the conference organized a lively discussion of the matter. The initiative of A. P. Gulyaev, who raised an urgent problem that can be solved only with the participation of leading specialists in many fields and with the attention of responsible organs, was highly appreciated.It was suggested that a discussion of the topic be opened on the pages of the journal "Metal Science and Heat Treatment of Metals."In this connection, we present this information as a beginning of a discussion of problems of brittle fracture in metals and invite i...

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