This book describes the behavior of crystalline solids via methods of modern continuum mechanics. Coverage includes anisotropic crystal elasticity, plasticity, and methods for representing effects of defects in the solid on the material's mechanical response.

In this volume a survey of the most relevant nonlinear crack models is provided, with the purpose of analyzing the nonlinear mechanical effects occurring at the tip of macrocracks in quasi-brittle materials - such as concrete, rocks, ceramics, polymers, high-strength metallic alloys - and in brittle-matrix fibre-reinforced composites. Such local effects, as, for example, plastic deformation, yielding, strain-hardening, strain-softening, mechanical damage, matrix microcracking, aggregate debonding, fibre bridging, fibre slippage, crazing, and so on, are properly described through different...

The IUT AM / IFToMM Symposium on Synthesis of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems, held in Riga, Latvia, 24-28 August 1998, was one of a series of IUTAM sponsored symposia which focus on the theory and application of methods of nonlinear dynamics in mechanics. The symposium follows eighteen symposia on Analysis and Synthesis of Nonlinear Mechanical Oscillatory Systems held at Riga Technical University from 1971 to 1991 and in 1996 (prof. E. Lavendelis and Prof. M. Zakrzhevsky). Early in the late fifties and sixties Prof. J. G. Panovko organised several successful conferences in Riga on Nonlinear...

This book has grown out of lectures and courses given at Linkoping University, Sweden, over a period of 15 years. It gives an introductory treatment of problems and methods of structural optimization. The three basic classes of geometrical - timization problems of mechanical structures, i. e., size, shape and topology op- mization, are treated. The focus is on concrete numerical solution methods for d- crete and (?nite element) discretized linear elastic structures. The style is explicit and practical: mathematical proofs are provided when arguments can be kept e- mentary but are otherwise...

This book elucidates the correlation of fatigue crack growth data to multiscale cracking, particularly to the understanding of micrographs influenced by mechanical disturbance and thermodynamic variables. Attention is given to the interpretation of test data by fatigue crack growth rate using two empirical parameters in consistent with the fracture control methodology currently used by industry. Micrograph and crack growth rate data are presented for a host of metals used by the aerospace and nuclear industry. Furthermore, these data can be shown to lie on a straight line for the two...

This unique book is dedicated to the application of self-consistent methods to the solution of static and dynamic problems of the mechanics and physics of composite materials. The effective elastic, electric, dielectric, thermo-conductive and other properties of composite materials reinforced by ellipsoidal, spherical multi-layered inclusions, thin hard and soft inclusions, short fibers and unidirected multi-layered fibers are considered. The book contains many concrete results.

This is the first book of robotics presenting solutions of uncoupled and fully-isotropic parallel robotic manipulators and a method for their structural synthesis. Part 1 presents the methodology proposed for structural synthesis. Part 2 presents the various topologies of parallel robots generated by this systematic approach. Many solutions are presented here for the first time. The book will contribute to a widespread implementation of these solutions in industrial products.

Aeroelasticity is the study of flexible structures situated in a flowing fluid. Its modern origins are in the field of aerospace engineering, but it has now expanded to include phenomena arising in other fields such as bioengineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. The present volume is a teaching text for a first, and possibly second, course in aeroelasticity. It will also be useful as a reference source on the fundamentals of the subject for practitioners. In this third edition, several chapters have been revised and three new chapters added. The latter...

Composite materials are heterogeneous by nature, and are intended to be, since only the combination of different constituent materials can give them the desired combination of low weight, stiffness and strength. At present, the knowledge has advanced to a level that materials can be tailored to exhibit certain, required properties. At the same time, the fact that these materials are composed of various, sometimes very different constituents, make their mechanical behaviour complex. This observation holds with respect to the deformation behaviour, but especially with respect to the failure...

This text presents the techniques for a wide set of applications, ranging from the problems of size and shape optimization (historically the first to be studied) to topology and material optimization. Structural models are considered that use both discrete and finite elements. Structural materials can be classical or new. Emerging methods are also addressed, such as automatic differentiation, intelligent structures optimization, integration of structural optimization in concurrent engineering environments, and multidisciplinary optimization.