Elasticity (Q5917512)

Since the first edition of this book was published (1992; Zbl 0787.73001), there have been major improvements in symbolic mathematical languages such as \texttt{Maple} and \texttt{Mathematica}, and this has opened up the possibility of solving considerably more complex and hence interesting and realistic elasticity problems as classroom examples. It also enables the student to focus on the formulation of the problem (e.g. the appropriate governing equations and boundary conditions) rather than on the algebraic manipulations, with a consequent improvement in insight into the subject and in motivation. During the past 10 years the author has developed files in \texttt{Maple} and \texttt{Mathematica} to facilitate this process. He gave in the first edition electronic versions of the Tables in Ch. 19, ``The Boussinesq Potentials'' and in Ch. 20, ``Thermoelastic Displacement Potentials'', together with recurrence relations for generating spherical harmonics. One purpose of this new edition is to make this electronic material available to the reader through the Kluwer website www.elasticity.org. Some hints about the use of this material are contained in Appendix A, Using \texttt{Maple} and \texttt{Mathematica}. Those who have never used \texttt{Maple} or \texttt{Mathematica} will find that it takes only a few hours of trial and error to learn how to write programs to solve boundary value problems in elasticity. The author has greatly expanded the number of end-of-chapter problems, which are expressed, wherever possible, in the form they would arise in engineering -- i.e. as a body of a given geometry subjected to prescribed loading -- instead of inviting the student to `verify' that a given candidate stress function is appropriate to the problem. Some of these problems are quite challenging and they were the subject of substantial technical papers within the not too distant past, but they can all be solved using \texttt{Maple} or \texttt{Mathematica}. This second edition includes new three chapters on antiplane stress systems, Saint-Venant torsion and bending and an expanded section on three-dimensional problems in spherical and cylindrical coordinate systems, including axisymmetric torsion of bars of non-uniform circular cross-section. The topics covered are chosen with a view to modern research applications in fracture mechanics, composite materials, tribology and numerical methods. Thus, significant attention is given to crack and contact problems, problems involving interfaces between dissimilar media, thermoelasticity, singular asymptotic stress fields and three-dimensional problems. Most of the text should be readily intelligible to a reader with an undergraduate background of one or two courses in elementary mechanics of materials and a rudimentary knowledge of partial differentiation. Emphasis is placed on engineering applications of elasticity, and examples are generally worked through to final expressions for the stress and displacement fields in order to explore the engineering consequences of the results.