There has been a growing interest in the foundation of the theory of th- walled composite beams and of their incorporation in aeronautical/aerospace, automotive, helicopter and turbomachinery rotor blades, mechanical, civil and naval constructions inthe last two decades or so. The proliferation of the specialized literature, mainly in the form of journal/ proceedings papers, and the activity in terms of workshops devoted to this topic attest this interest. A decisive factor that has fueled thisgrowing activity was generatedby highdiversity and severity ofdemandsand operating conditions imposed on structural elements involvedintheadvanced technology. In order to beable to survive andful?ll theirmission inthe extreme environmental conditions inwhich they operate, new materialsand new structural paradigms are required. The new exotic structures have to provide higher performances, unatta- able bytheclassical structures builtof traditional materials. Theadvent of advanced composite materials, of smart materialsandfunctionally graded - terials (FGMs), have constituted the strongest stimuli for suchdevelopments. Moreover, their incorporation is likely to expand the use and capabilities of thin-walledbeam structures. Thenew and stringent requirements imposed on aeronautical/aerospace, turbomachinery and shaft structural systems will be best met by such new types of material structures

This book is devoted to the theory of coupled electro-magneto-thermo-elastic fields excited in different bodies by various sources, both static and dynamic. It presents the classical piezoelectric and piezomagnetic effects, the Mindlin s electroelastic coupling due to a polarization gradient, and different combinations of these effects with thermoelasticity."

FolJowing the formulation of the laws of mechanics by Newton, Lagrange sought to clarify and emphasize their geometrical character. Poincare and Liapunov successfuIJy developed analytical mechanics further along these lines. In this approach, one represents the evolution of all possible states (positions and momenta) by the flow in phase space, or more efficiently, by mappings on manifolds with a symplectic geometry, and tries to understand qualitative features of this problem, rather than solving it explicitly. One important outcome of this line of inquiry is the discovery that vastly different physical systems can actually be abstracted to a few universal forms, like Mandelbrot's fractal and Smale's horse-shoe map, even though the underlying processes are not completely understood. This, of course, implies that much of the observed diversity is only apparent and arises from different ways of looking at the same system. Thus, modern nonlinear dynamics 1 is very much akin to classical thermodynamics in that the ideas and results appear to be applicable to vastly different physical systems. Chaos theory, which occupies a central place in modem nonlinear dynamics, refers to a deterministic development with chaotic outcome. Computers have contributed considerably to progress in chaos theory via impressive complex graphics. However, this approach lacks organization and therefore does not afford complete insight into the underlying complex dynamical behavior. This dynamical behavior mandates concepts and methods from such areas of mathematics and physics as nonlinear differential equations, bifurcation theory, Hamiltonian dynamics, number theory, topology, fractals, and others.

This book presents theoretical fundamentals and applications of a new numerical model that has the ability to simulate wave propagation. Coverage examines linear waves in ideal fluids and elastic domains. In addition, the book includes a numerical simulation of wave propagation based on scalar and vector wave equations, as well as fluid-structure interaction and soil-structure interaction.

Books like their authors have their destinies. This book for the most part couldhavebeenwrittenearlier, butithappenedtobereleasedaslateasthe 21stcentury.Itisbasedonthenumerousfundamentalstudiesofmyteacher Kamil Sh. Khodzhaev. His disease prevented him from implementing his ideas in the form that he had been contemplating for years. It was me who tried to convey his concepts and ideas with the least possible distortions. This book contains a number of solutions worked out by Kamil Sh. Khodzhaev himself as well as problems solved by the authors jointly or separately. Kamil Sh. Khodzhaev founded St. Petersburg school of electromech- ics, with the focus on mechanics as a part, however distinctive, of general analytical mechanics, having been inspired by the desire of our common Teacher Anatoly I. Lurie "to set order" in this signi?cant branch of s- ence. Khodzhaev'sschoolhasmanyfollowers andtheirworkisanintegral part of the book. Some original ideas and studies of our colleagues are provided with footnotes in the corresponding sections while Chapter 6 dealing with the motion of the charged particle in electromagnetic ?eld was written in cooperation with another co-author Alexander G. Chirkov.

"Analytical System Dynamics: Modeling and Simulation" combines results from analytical mechanics and system dynamics to develop an approach to modeling constrained multidiscipline dynamic systems. This combination yields a modeling technique based on the energy method of Lagrange, which in turn, results in a set of differential-algebraic equations that are suitable for numerical integration. Using the modeling approach presented in this book enables one to model and simulate systems as diverse as a six-link, closed-loop mechanism or a transistor power amplifier.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 1997 IUTAM Symposium, where invited researchers in acoustics, aeronautics, elastodynamics, electromagnetics, hydrodynamics, and mathematics discussed non-reflecting computational boundaries. The participants formulated benchmark problems for evaluating computational boundaries, as described in the first article.

Multibody Dynamics is an area of Computational Mechanics which blends together various disciplines such as structural dynamics, multi-physics - chanics, computational mathematics, control theory and computer science, in order to deliver methods and tools for the virtual prototyping of complex mechanical systems. Multibody dynamics plays today a central role in the modeling, analysis, simulation and optimization of mechanical systems in a variety of ?elds and for a wide range of industrial applications. The ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics was ini- ated in Lisbon in 2003, and then continued in Madrid in 2005 with the goal of providing researchers in Multibody Dynamics with appropriate venues for exchanging ideas and results. The third edition of the Conference was held at the Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy, from June 25 to June 28, 2007. The Conference saw the participation of over 250 researchers from 32 di?- ent countries, presenting 209 technical papers, and proved to be an excellent forum for discussion and technical exchange on the most recent advances in this rapidly growing ?eld.

Computational Mechanics of the Classical Guitar describes a new dynamic paradigm in instrument acoustics based on time-dependent transient analysis and simulation of complete musical instruments. It describes the current state of theoretical and experimental research into the guitar for engineers, instrument makers and musicians. This includes a summary of the basic equations for the mechanics of vibrating bodies and a presentation of the FDM (finite difference method) model with which the true vibrational behaviour of the instrument as an entire system can be understood for the first time. This monograph presents various new theoretical and experimental results and insights into guitar playing such as the coupling between the strings and the top plate or a description of the finger noise made when the fingers slide over the strings before plucking.

Many historically and artistically important masonry buildings of the world's architecturalheritageareindireneedofmaintenanceandrestoration.Inorder tooptimizesuchoperationsintermsofcost-e?ectiveness,architecturalimpact andstatice?ectiveness,accuratemodelsofthestructuralbehaviorofmasonry constructions are invaluable. The ultimate aim of such modeling is to obtain important information, such as the stress ?eld, and to estimate the extent of cracking and its evolution when the structure is subjected to variations in both boundary and loading conditions. Although masonry has been used in building for centuries, it is only - centlythatconstitutivemodelsandcalculationtechniqueshavebeenavailable that enable realistic description of the static behavior of structures made of this heterogeneous material whose response to tension is fundamentally d- ferent from that to compression. Important insights on the mechanical behavior of masonry arches and vaults come from as far back as Leonardo [10], Hooke [58], Poleni [92] and many other authors (see [47], [9] and [10] for detailed references). Castigliano, in his famous paper on the Mosca bridge [23], and Signorini, in his studies on masonry beams [97], [98], showed both the possibility and necessity of taking into account the weak tensile strength of masonry material.

The ?eld of applied nonlinear dynamics has attracted scientists and engineers across many different disciplines to develop innovative ideas and methods to study c- plex behavior exhibited by relatively simple systems. Examples include: population dynamics, ?uidization processes, applied optics, stochastic resonance, ?ocking and ?ightformations, lasers, andmechanicalandelectricaloscillators. Acommontheme among these and many other examples is the underlying universal laws of nonl- ear science that govern the behavior, in space and time, of a given system. These laws are universal in the sense that they transcend the model-speci?c features of a system and so they can be readily applied to explain and predict the behavior of a wide ranging phenomena, natural and arti?cial ones. Thus the emphasis in the past decades has been in explaining nonlinear phenomena with signi?cantly less att- tion paid to exploiting the rich behavior of nonlinear systems to design and fabricate new devices that can operate more ef?ciently. Recently, there has been a series of meetings on topics such as Experimental Chaos, Neural Coding, and Stochastic Resonance, which have brought together many researchers in the ?eld of nonlinear dynamics to discuss, mainly, theoretical ideas that may have the potential for further implementation. In contrast, the goal of the 2007 ICAND (International Conference on Applied Nonlinear Dynamics) was focused more sharply on the implementation of theoretical ideas into actual - vices and system

Complexity science has been a source of new insight in physical and social systems and has demonstrated that unpredictability and surprise are fundamental aspects of the world around us. This book is the outcome of a discussion meeting of leading scholars and critical thinkers with expertise in complex systems sciences and leaders from a variety of organizations, sponsored by the Prigogine Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the Plexus Institute, to explore strategies for understanding uncertainty and surprise. Besides contributions to the conference, it includes a key digest by the editors as well as a commentary by the late nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, "Surprises in half of a century." The book is intended for researchers and scientists in complexity science, as well as for a broad interdisciplinary audience of both practitioners and scholars. It will well serve those interested in the research issues and in the application of complexity science to physical and social systems.

Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation introduces a new approach to the modeling of fingertips that have a soft pad and a hard back plate, similar to human fingers. Starting from the observation of soft-fingered grasping and manipulation, the book provides a parallel distributed model that takes into account tangential deformation of the fingertips. The model is supported with many experimental verifications and simulation results. Statics and dynamics in soft-fingered grasping and manipulation are also formulated based on this new model. The book uniquely investigates how soft fingertips with hard back plates enhance dexterity in grasping and manipulation, theoretically and experimentally, revealing the differences between soft-fingered and rigid-fingered manipulation. Researchers involved in object manipulation by robotic hands, as well as in human dexterity in object manipulation, will find this text enlightening.

Computational kinematics is an enthralling area of science with a rich spectrum of problems at the junction of mechanics, robotics, computer science, mathematics, and computer graphics. The present book collects up-to-date methods as presented during the Fifth International Workshop on Computational Kinematics (CK2009) held at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. The covered topics include design and optimization of cable-driven robots, analysis of parallel manipulators, motion planning, numerical methods for mechanism calibration and optimization, geometric approaches to mechanism analysis and design, synthesis of mechanisms, kinematical issues in biomechanics, balancing and construction of novel mechanical devices, detection and treatment of singularities, as well as computational methods for gear design. The results should be of interest for practicing and research engineers as well as Ph.D. students from the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering, computer science, and computer graphics.

Springer published the ?rst book of the series of Advances in Robot Kinematics in an edited format in 1991. Since 1994, Kluwer and Springer published a book everytwo yearswithoutinterruptions.Thesebooksdealwith the theoryandpractice of robot kinematics and treat the kinematic aspects of robot motion and design of robots.EachbookofAdvancesinRobotKinematicsreportsthemostrecentresearch projects and presents important new discoveries. The series of Advances in Robot Kinematics is considered a most important source of information in its area. The present book emphasizes kinematic analysis and design. The issues - dressed are fundamentally kinematic in nature, including synthesis, calibration, - dundancy, forcecontrol, dexterity, inverseand forwardkinematics, kinematicsin- larities, as well as over-constrained systems. Methods used include line geometry, quaternion algebra, screw algebra, and linear algebra. These methods are applied to both parallel and serial multi-degree-of-freedom systems. The results should - terest researchers, teachers and students, in ?elds of engineering and mathematics related to robot theory, design, control and application. The contributions had been rigorously reviewed by independent reviewers. The authorsdiscussed their results at the eleventhinternationalsymposiumon Advances in Robot Kinematics which was held in June 2008 in Batz-sur-Mer, France. The symposium was organized by the Institut de Recherche en Communications et - bernetique de Nantes, France in collaborationwith the J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, under the patronage of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Scie

Periodic Systems gives a comprehensive treatment of the theory of periodic systems, including the problems of filtering and control. Topics covered include: basic issues, including Floquet theory, controllability and observability, canonical decomposition, system norms and Lyapunov and robust stability; the problem of state estimation in its various forms, filtering, prediction and smoothing; control design methods, particularly optimal and robust control. The text focuses on discrete-time signals and systems; however, an overview of the entire field, including the continuous-time case, is provided in the first chapter. The authors presentation of the theory and results is mathematically rigorous while maintaining a readable style, avoiding excessive formalism. This makes the book accessible to graduate students and researchers from the fields of engineering, physics, economics and mathematics.

This volume contains the invited papers presented at the 9th International C- ference "Dynamical Systems - Theory and Applications" held in ?od ' z, ' Poland, December 17-20, 2007 dealing with nonlinear dynamical systems. The conf- encegatheredanumerousgroupofscientistsandengineers,whodealwithwidely understoodproblemsofdynamicsmetalsoinengineeringanddailylife. Organizationof the conferencewould nothavebeen possiblewithouta great effortofthestaffoftheDepartmentofAutomaticsandBiomechanicsoftheTech- calUniversityof?od ' z. ' Thepatronageovertheconferencehasbeentakenbythef- lowingscienti?cinstitutions:MechanicsandMachineDynamicsCommitteesofthe PolishAcademyofSciences,PolishSocietyofTheoreticalandAppliedMech- ics,PolishAssociationforComputationalMechanics,andTechnicalCommitteeof NonlinearOscillationsofIFToMM. The ?nancial support has been given by the Department of Education at the ?'odz' City Hall, Ministry of National Education and the Polish Association for ComputationalMechanics. We welcomednearly100personsfrom13countriesallovertheworld.They decidedto share the results of their researchandmanyyears of experiencein a disciplineofdynamicalsystemsbysubmittingmanyinterestingpapers. TheScienti?cCommitteeincludesthefollowingmembers:IgorV.Andrianov- Aachen;JanAwrejcewicz -?od ' z; ' Jose M. Balthazar- Rio Claro;Denis Bla- more- Newark; Iliya Blekhman - Sankt Petersburg;Roman Bogacz - Warsaw; TadeuszBurczyns ' ki-Gliwice;DickvanCampen-Eindhoven;Czes?awCempel- Poznan';LotharGaul- Stuttgart;Jozef ' Giergiel-Cracow;Katica Hedrih-Nis; ? Janusz Kowal - Cracow; Vadim A. Krysko - Saratov; W?odzimierz Kurnik - Warsaw; Claude-Henri Lamarque - Lyon; Nuno M. Maia - Lisbon; Leonid I.

This text is well-designed with respect to the exposition from the preliminary to the more advanced and the applications interwoven throughout. It provides the essential foundations for the theory as well as the basic facts relating to almost periodicity. In six structured and self-contained chapters, the author unifies the treatment of various classes of almost periodic functions, while uniquely addressing oscillations and waves in the almost periodic case.

This is the first text to present the latest results in almost periodic oscillations and waves. The presentation level and inclusion of several clearly presented proofs make this work ideal for graduate students in engineering and science. The concept of almost periodicity is widely applicable to continuuum mechanics, electromagnetic theory, plasma physics, dynamical systems, and astronomy, which makes the book a useful tool for mathematicians and physicists.

Servo Motors and Industrial Control Theory presents the fundamentals of servo motors and control theory in a manner that is accessible to undergraduate students, as well as practitioners who may need updated information on the subject. Graphical methods for classical control theory have been replaced with examples using mathematical software, such as MathCad and MatLab, to solve real-life engineering control problems. State variable feedback control theory, which is generally not introduced until the Masters level, is introduced clearly and simply for students to approach complicated problems and examples.

Modeling and Control in Vibrational and Structural Dynamics: A Differential Geometric Approach describes the control behavior of mechanical objects, such as wave equations, plates, and shells. It shows how the differential geometric approach is used when the coefficients of partial differential equations (PDEs) are variable in space (waves/plates), when the PDEs themselves are defined on curved surfaces (shells), and when the systems have quasilinear principal parts. To make the book self-contained, the author starts with the necessary background on Riemannian geometry. He then describes differential geometric energy methods that are generalizations of the classical energy methods of the 1980s. He illustrates how a basic computational technique can enable multiplier schemes for controls and provide mathematical models for shells in the form of free coordinates. The author also examines the quasilinearity of models for nonlinear materials, the dependence of controllability/stabilization on variable coefficients and equilibria, and the use of curvature theory to check assumptions. With numerous examples and exercises throughout, this book presents a complete and up-to-date account of many important advances in the modeling and control of vibrational and structural dynamics.

In this edited book various novel approaches to problems of modern civil engineering are demonstrated. Experts associated within the Lagrange Laboratory present recent research results in civil engineering dealing both with modelling and computational aspects. Many modern topics are covered, such as monumental dams, soil mechanics and geotechnics, granular media, contact and friction problems, damage and fracture, new structural materials, and vibration damping - presenting the state of the art of mechanical modelling and computational issues in civil engineering.

This book presents up-to-date knowledge of dynamic analysis and its applications in engineering world. It covers the relevant topics in analytical, numerical and experimental aspects. To facilitate the understanding of the topics by readers with various backgrounds, general principles are linked to their applications from different angles. Special interesting topics such as statistics of motions and dynamic loading, damping modeling and measurement, nonlinear dynamics, finite element analysis, computer systems for calculation efficiency, structural health monitoring and human body vibrations etc., are also presented. The target readers include industry professionals in civil, marine and mechanical engineering as well as researchers and students in this area.

Too often the Eartha (TM)s surface acted as a divide between seismologists and engineers. Now it is becoming clear that the building behaviour largely depends on the seismic input and the buildings on their turn act as seismic sources, in an intricate interplay that non-linear phenomena make even more complex. These phenomena are often the cause of observed damage enhancement during past earthquakes. While research may pursue complex models to fully understand soil dynamics under seismic loading, we need also simple models valid on average, whose results can be easily transferred to end users.

Under the title a oeIncreasing Seismic Safety by Combining Engineering Technologies and Seismological Dataa, we grouped several topics to be discussed together by engineers and seismologists: (1) Can we use ambient noise building and soil characterisation to extract useful information for engineers? (2) How we can tell apart a frequency decrease due to distributed damage, concentrated damage, time- varying building and soil behaviour? (3) Which is the role of transients in ambient noise analysis? (4) Can we quantify the influence of existing buildings on ground-motion recordings? (5) To which extent soil-building resonance is a cause of damage enhancement? (6) How to couple soil and building non-linear behaviour?

On most questions there is an unanimous answer, but in some cases different views are present and the disagreement is faithfully reported.

Parametric Resonance in Dynamical Systems discusses the phenomenon of parametric resonance and its occurrence in mechanical systems, vehicles, motorcycles, aircraft and marine craft, along micro-electro-mechanical systems. The contributors provides an introduction to the root causes of this phenomenon and its mathematical equivalent, the Mathieu-Hill equation. Also included is a discussion of how parametric resonance occurs on ships and offshore systems, and its frequency in mechanical and electrical systems. This volume is ideal for researchers and mechanical engineers working in application fields such as MEMS, maritime, aircraft and ground vehicle engineering.

"Neural Network-Based State Estimation of Nonlinear Systems" presents efficient, easy to implement neural network schemes for state estimation, system identification, and fault detection and Isolation with mathematical proof of stability, experimental evaluation, and Robustness against unmolded dynamics, external disturbances, and measurement noises.