The state of deformation in earthlike self-gravitating objects (Q516067)

This small book describes the beginning of the scientific study of deformations of self-gra\-vi\-ta\-tion spheres, trying to emphasize the continuum mechanics perspective and attempting to present the modern theory. It also attempts to build a bridge between the continuum science and realistic applications. Chapter~1 describes the modeling of deformations and reviews the history and the state-of-art of the subject. Chapter~2 deals with the problem within the framework of linear elasticity and small deformations, and Chapter~3 presents an extensive discussion of self-gravity at large deformations in terms of physically linear geometrical elastic solids. Chapter~4 provides an interesting study of incompressibility with experiments. Finally, in Chapter~5, the authors give miscellaneous applications, numerical evaluations and some results. Overall, the book describes the development of the subject and points to new trends in the years to come.