Alan Baker
Aluminum is quite a different matter and when the first jet airliners came along (in particular the British deHavilland Comet) there were quite a few crashes before they figured out that aluminum can fatigue... ...catastrophically.

-hh
FYI, there were some iron/steel railroad bridges which catastrophically failed in (IIRC half) cyclic loading at the turn of the 19th/20th century.

Alan Baker
But tell us all, Nicolas: what are the specific courses you've taken that have taught you so much about the subject. :-)

-hh
You mean a list something like: "ENGR 220 Fundamentals of Materials 4.0 Credits Introduces materials and their properties; atomic view and architecture of solids; atomic motion in solids, mechanical, magnetic, electrical and optical properties of materials. Corrosion and degradation of solids." "MEM 230 Mechanics of Materials I 4.0 Credits Covers definitions of stress and strain, uniaxial loading, torsion, bending moments and shear forces in beams, bending stresses and shear stress in beams, and stress transformation." "MEM 238 Dynamics 4.0 Credits Covers kinematics and kinetics in two and three-dimensional space, force and acceleration, linear and angular momentum, and energy methods."