The behavior of shells composed of isotropic and composite materials (Q1904034)

This is a textbook for graduate courses in shell theory. It is intended also for self-study by practising engineers who would like to learn more about the behavior of shells and who will find many suggestions to solve problems in structural mechanics. The book has two parts: The first 290 pages deal with shells of isotropic material, the following about 230 pages treat the behavior of shells, involving anisotropic composite materials, such as fibre reinforced polymer, metal or ceramic matrix materials. As in the first part only two elastic constants are available, the presentation can concentrate on the difficult mathematical formulation of the basis equation in curvilinear coordinates and on the techniques of solutions. At present there are many ``classical'' shell theories. Each of them is an approximate solution of the three-dimensional elasticity problem (one dimension of the shell -- the thickness -- is very small in comparison to each of two other dimensions). The approaches involve different terms in the governing differential equations. In this book the theory of Reissner and Naghdi is used throughout; occasional references to the other theories are made. After an introduction into tensor theory and the derivation of the basic equations, cylindrical, conical, spherical shells and shells of other shapes (for example ellipsoidal, toroidal) are handled. Chapter 8 deals with thermoelastic effects, chapter 10 introduces energy methods. The next two chapters give a short insight into stability and vibration of isotropic shells. Here mainly results are given whereas the theories are described not very precisely. In the final chapter (very thick cylinders), the theory is derived directly from the three-dimensional theory. The solutions are approximate only in that the infinite series of Legendre polynomials are truncated. Reviewer misses any remarks about large deformations of thin shells (for instance, the well-known equations of von Kármán). Part II starts with an introduction into anisotropic elasticity and laminate theory. Again cylindrical, conical and spherical shells of composite material are handled in separate chapters. A lot of different load cases are discussed. Chapter 20 and 21 show the influence on anisotropy on buckling and vibrations. The last chapter deals with shells of sandwich construction, and some ideas about optimization are described. At the end of any chapter there are detailed references which make possible an insight in the voluminous shell literature. The author seems to have difficulties with the German language in so far as only American and Russian schools (besides of a few exceptions) are cited. Furthermore, a lot of problems are given which may be solved by the reader to check his knowledge (the answers are given in the appendix). In summary, it may be said that this book is interesting for students although it is relatively expensive. It is very useful for engineers as it contains solutions and results of many practical problems of shells which are used today in structure mechanics.