Advanced Strength and Applied Elasticity (4th Edition)

Book Preface

This text is a development of classroom notes prepared in connection with ad­vanced undergraduate and first-year graduate courses in elasticity and the mechan­ics of solids. It is designed to satisfy the requirements of course.? subsequent to an elementary treatment of the strength of materials. In addition to its applicability to aeronautical, civil, and mechanical engineering and to engineering mechanics cur­ricula, the authors have endeavored to make the text useful to practicing engineers. Emphasis is given to numerical techniques (which lend themselves to computeriza­tion) in the solution of problems resisting analytical treatment. The stress placed on numerical solutions is not intended to deny the value of classical analysis, which is given a rather full treatment. It instead attempts to fill what the authors believe to be a void ill the world of textbooks.

An effort ha.,; been made to present a balance between the theory necessary lo gain insight into the mechanics, but which can often offer no more than crude ap­proximations to real problems because of simplifications related to geometry and conditions of loading, and numerical solutions, which are so useful in presenting stress analysis in a more realistic setting. The authors have thus attempted to em­phasize those aspects or theory and application that prepare a student for more ad­vanced study or for professional practice in design and analysis.

The theory of elasticity plays three important roles in the text: It provides exact solutions where the configurations of loading and boundary are relatively simple; it provides a check on the limitations of the mechanics of materials approach; and it serves as the basis or approximate solutions employing numerical analysis.

To make the text as clear as possible, attention is given to the presentation of the fundamentals of the mechanics of materials. The physical significance of the so­lutions and practical applications are given emphasis. The authors have made a spe­cial effort to illustrate important principles and applications with numerical examples. Consistent with announced national policy, problems are included in the text in which the physical quantities are expressed in the Intemational System of Units (SI). All important quantities are defined in both SI and U.S. Customary Sys­tem of units. A sign convention, consistent with vector mechanics, is employed throughout for loads, internal forces, and. stresses. This -?nvention conforms to that used in most classical strength of matenals and elasticity texts, as well as to. that most often employed in ?e numerical analysis of complex structures.