The latest state of simulation techniques to model plasticity and fracture in crystalline materials on the nano- and microscale is presented. Discrete dislocation mechanics and the neighbouring fields molecular dynamics and crystal plasticity are central parts. The physical phenomena, the theoretical basics, their mathematical description and the simulation techniques are introduced and important problems from the formation of dislocation structures to fatigue and fracture from the nano- to microscale as well as it 's impact on the macro behaviour are considered.

Vibration problems dealing with advanced Mathematical and Numerical Techniques have extensive application in a wide class of problems in ae- nautics, aerodynamics, space science and technology, off-shore engineering and in the design of different structural components of high speed space crafts and nuclear reactors. Different classes of vibration problems dealing with complex geometries and non-linear behaviour require careful attention of scientists and engineers in pursuit of their research activities. Almost all fields of Engineering, Science and Technology, ranging from small domestic building subjected to earthquake and cyclone to the space craft venturing towards different planets, from giant ship to human skeleton, encounter problems of vibration and dynamic loading. This being truly an interdisciplinary field, where the mathematicians, phy- cists and engineers could interface their innovative ideas and creative thoughts to arrive at an appropriate solution, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, India, a premier institution for education and research in engineering, science and technology felt it appropriate to organize 8th International C- ference on "Vibration Problems (ICOVP-2007)" as a part of its sesquicentenary celebration. The conference created a platform and all aspects of vibration phenomenon with the focus on the state-of-the art in theoretical, experimental and applied research areas were addressed and the scientific interaction, p- ticipated by a large gathering including eminent personalities and young research workers, generated many research areas and innovative ideas.

In November of 1891, at the age of twenty-five, John MacDonald Blackstock Hawley arrived in Fort Worth, Texas. A civil engineer from Minnesota, Hawley "hung out his shingle" in 1894 and began a tradition of engineering in Texas that his successors in the firm of Freese and Nichols have continued for one hundred years.
This history of Freese and Nichols focuses on the firm's contributions, design innovations, and "firsts" in water supply, water treatment, and wastewater engineering; transportation design for roads, bridges, and airports; city and regional planning; environmental science; and general civil and environmental engineering. A personal as well as professional account, A Century in the Works offers anecdotes about John Hawley's battle-ax punch and eccentric scientific experiments, Simon Freese's penchant for practical jokes, and Marvin Nichols's "water fights" and genealogical shakeups of his family tree.
The Freese and Nichols story will interest urban and environmental historians, professional engineers, and those working in related fields of hydraulic engineering, municipal and industrial water and sanitary systems, water quality, dam safety, waste management, transportation systems, and urban development.
The student of Texas history will find much of interest here as well. In many ways, the history of Freese and Nichols parallels that of the state for the past one hundred years.
The firm has had a pivotal role in developing Texas water resources since Hawley arrived in the state. And it will be the rare Texas reader who has never gone boating or picnicking at one of the over a hundred Texas lakes engineered by the firm in the intervening century.

This book includes a selection of the best contributions to the Forum on Specification and Design Languages held in 2005 (FDL'05). It provides detailed insights into recent works dealing with a large spectrum of issues in system-on-chip design. All the chapters have been carefully revised and extended to offer up-to-date information. They also provide seeds for further researches and developments in the field of heterogeneous systems-on-chip design.

This book concerns the numerical simulation of dynamical systems whose trajec- ries may not be differentiable everywhere. They are named nonsmooth dynamical systems. They make an important class of systems, rst because of the many app- cations in which nonsmooth models are useful, secondly because they give rise to new problems in various elds of science. Usually nonsmooth dynamical systems are represented as differential inclusions, complementarity systems, evolution va- ational inequalities, each of these classes itself being split into several subclasses. The book is divided into four parts, the rst three parts being sketched in Fig. 0. 1. The aim of the rst part is to present the main tools from mechanics and applied mathematics which are necessary to understand how nonsmooth dynamical systems may be numerically simulated in a reliable way. Many examples illustrate the th- retical results, and an emphasis is put on mechanical systems, as well as on electrical circuits (the so-called Filippov's systems are also examined in some detail, due to their importance in control applications). The second and third parts are dedicated to a detailed presentation of the numerical schemes. A fourth part is devoted to the presentation of the software platform Siconos. This book is not a textbook on - merical analysis of nonsmooth systems, in the sense that despite the main results of numerical analysis (convergence, order of consistency, etc. ) being presented, their proofs are not provided.

This book contains the presentations given during the 9th International Workshop on Railway Noise (IWRN9) which took place in Munich/Feldafing, Germany, on 4th to 8th September 2007. This workshop was organised by the Acoustics and Vibration Department of DB Systemtechnik, the technical engineering office of Deutsche Bahn AG. More than 120 participants from 17 countries followed the invitation to the wo- shop. This great response showed the continuing interest in an important topic of railway technology and offered the opportunity to present the recent results of intense worldwide activities to the international community of railway noise and vibration experts and to share knowledge as well as experience. Because an efficient transportation network is indispensable to handle the general mobility increase and road networks have reached their socio-ecological limits, the railway network is to be strengthened. For example the European Commission has given distinct political signals to get more passengers onto the railways. This policy represents a clear challenge for the next few decades not only for European railway companies: the considerable increase in mobility will lead to a doubling of the railway traffic volume within the next 10 to 20 years. To reduce the environmental impact, the Directive on the Assessment and M- agement of Environmental Noise has been put into force in Europe, aiming at avo- ing, preventing or reducing harmful effects of environmental noise on human health.

A complete solution for problems of vibration control in structures that may be subject to a broadband primary vibration field, this book addresses the following steps: experimental identification of the dynamic model of the structure; optimal placement of sensors and actuators; formulation of control constraints in terms of controller frequency response shape; controller design and simulation; and controller implementation and rapid prototyping. The identification procedure is a gray-box approach tailored to the estimation of modal parameters of large-scale flexible structures. The actuator/sensor placement algorithm maximizes a modal controllability index improving the effectiveness of the control. Considering limitations of sensors and actuators, the controller is chosen as a stable, band-pass MIMO system resulting from the closed-form solution of a robust control problem. Experimental results on an aeronautical stiffened skin panel are presented using rapid-prototyping hardware.

This book addresses applications of earthquake engineering for both offshore and land-based structures. It is self-contained as a reference work and covers a wide range of topics, including topics related to engineering seismology, geotechnical earthquake engineering, structural engineering, as well as special contents dedicated to design philosophy, determination of ground motions, shock waves, tsunamis, earthquake damage, seismic response of offshore and arctic structures, spatial varied ground motions, simplified and advanced seismic analysis methods, sudden subsidence of offshore platforms, tank liquid impacts during earthquakes, seismic resistance of non-structural elements, and various types of mitigation measures, etc. The target readership includes professionals in offshore and civil engineering, officials and regulators, as well as researchers and students in this field.

The safety of vehicle traffic depends on how well automotive lighting supports the visual perception of the driver. This book explains the fundamentals of visual perception, like e.g. physiology of eye and brain, as well as those of automotive lighting technology, like e.g. design of headlamps and signal lights. It is an interdisciplinary approach to a rapidly evolving field of science and technology written by a team of authors who are experts in their fields.

Any researchers in the field of meshless methods who want to keep up to date with the latest work in the field will find this an essential text.In recent years meshless/meshfree methods have gained considerable attention in engineering and applied mathematics.The variety of problems that are now being addressed by these techniques continues to expand and the quality of the results obtained demonstrates the effectiveness of many of the methods currently available.This means that engineers in general, applied mathematicians, physicists, and those active in computational mechanics will all find this book a useful reference tool as well. The book collects extended original contributions presented at the first ECCOMAS Conference on Meshless Methods held in 2005 in Lisbon.

This book collects the theoretical derivation of a recently presented general variational macroscopic continuum theory of multiphase poroelasticity (VMTPM), together with its applications to consolidation and stress partitioning problems of interest in several applicative engineering contexts, such as in geomechanics and biomechanics. The theory is derived based on a purely-variational deduction, rooted in the least-Action principle, by considering a minimal set of kinematic descriptors. The treatment herein considered keeps a specific focus on the derivation of most general medium-independent governing equations. It is shown that VMTPM recovers paradigms of consolidated use in multiphase poroelasticity such as Terzaghi's stress partitioning principle and Biot's equations for wave propagation. In particular, the variational treatment permits the derivation of a general medium-independent stress partitioning law, and the proposed variational theory predicts that the external stress, the fluid pressure, and the stress tensor work-associated with the macroscopic strain of the solid phase are partitioned according to a relation which, from a formal point of view, turns out to be strictly compliant with Terzaghi's law, irrespective of the microstructural and constitutive features of a given medium. Moreover, it is shown that some experimental observations on saturated sandstones, generally considered as proof of deviations from Terzaghi's law, are ordinarily predicted by VMTPM. As a peculiar prediction of VMTPM, the book shows that the phenomenon of compression-induced liquefaction experimentally observed in cohesionless mixtures can be obtained as a natural implication of this theory by a purely rational deduction. A characterization of the phenomenon of crack closure in fractured media is also inferred in terms of macroscopic strain and stress paths. Altogether the results reported in this monograph exemplify the capability of VMTPM to describe and predict a large class of linear and nonlinear mechanical behaviors observed in two-phase saturated materials.

Hydrodynamic lubrication plays an important role in mechanical engineering, although not very many books have been published on the subject. This book was written with graduate students, researchers and designers in view.

The first four chapters are preparations for the following five chapters, where several most important subjects in hydrodynamic lubrication are discussed in detail, based on the author's own researches. Examples are oil whip (stability of rotating shafts), foil bearings in connection with magnetic tape storages, squeeze film between rigid surfaces and visco-elastic surfaces, theoretical and experimental analyses of temperature rise in bearings, those of turbulent lubricating film using the k-epsilon model.

This book focuses on the chemistry and applications of flame retardants for polymers and other materials. It starts with a description and types of flame retardants, as well as their properties and chemical structures, to include chlorine- and bromine-containing flame retardants, phosphorus-based flame retardants, nitrogen-based flame retardants, and silicones. Inorganic materials that serve as flame retardants, such as boron-based additives, graphenes, and others are discussed in detail. In addition, the following subjects are discussed in detail: Flame retardant polymers The mechanisms of flame retardants, such as flame cooling, synergetic effects, degradation of flame retardants, and others Other flame retardant compositions, such as dripping inhibitors and smoke suppressants Testing methods for flame retardants, international standards, human health hazards, such as smoke toxicity and problems with wastes Synthesis and fabrication methods, as well as recycling methods The application of flame retardants to the coating material using 3D printing, reactive coating, and bulk addition methods Non-burning comonomers, foams, nanocomposites and bio-based materials Flame retardants with other textiles, such as wool and electrical applications such as batteries

Industries that use pumps, seals and pipes will also use valves and actuators in their systems. This key reference provides anyone who designs, uses, specifies or maintains valves and valve systems with all of the critical design, specification, performance and operational information they need for the job in hand. Brian Nesbitt is a well-known consultant with a considerable publishing record. A lifetime of experience backs up the huge amount of practical detail in this volume.
* Valves and actuators are widely used across industry and this dedicated reference provides all the information plant designers, specifiers or those involved with maintenance require
* Practical approach backed up with technical detail and engineering know-how makes this the ideal single volume reference
* Compares and contracts valve and actuator types to ensure the right equipment is chosen for the right application and properly maintained

Design is the essential component of engineering. Design Matters demonstrates the need to understand the context, process and delivery of engineering projects and services by focusing on the nature and practice of engineering design. The book specifically highlights the cultural, economic, political and social parameters and illustrates the importance of their understanding as demonstrated by successful designers.

Unique to Design Matters are case studies that demonstrate the principles described in the book and the importance of using multidisciplinary teams to achieve effective design development. Contributions are included from key professionals involved in several high-profile and innovative civil and industrial engineering projects, including:

• A Diagnostic Analyser, Northern Ireland
• A Foot Prosthesis, UK
• The Channel Tunnel Terminal, UK
• The Channel Tunnel Rail Link, UK
• The London Eye, London
• The Lesotho Hydro-electric Project, Natal
• An Australian Timber Arch Bridge, Melbourne
• The Bahaii Temple, New Delhi, India
• The Hampden Gurney Primary School, London
• The Bridge Academy Secondary School, London
• The Harris-Manchester College, Oxford
• The Angel of the North, Gateshead, UK

Design Matters is an ideal text for graduate students in all branches of engineering looking to gain a practical introduction to the breadth and depth of the design process as well as to practicing engineers who wish to gain further insight into how design engineering worksstrategically.

James Armstrong is an internationally-known consulting engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a past president of the Institution of Structural Engineers. He was responsible for the design and planning of such world-class projects as the Channel Tunnel Terminal works, the Falkland Islands airport and the University of Surrey, UK. In academia he has taught as a visiting professor at universities in the UK, United States, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He has travelled and lectured widely, in Russia, Romania, Brazil, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Hong Kong.

A material continuum moving axially at high speed can be met in numerous different technical applications. These comprise band saws, web papers during manufacturing, processing and printing processes, textile bands during manufacturing and processing, pipes transporting fluids, transmission belts as well as flat objects moving at high speeds in space. In all these so varied technical applications, the maximum transport speed or the transportation speed is aimed at in order to increase efficiency and optimize investment and performance costs of sometimes very expensive and complex machines and installations. The dynamic behavior of axially moving systems very often hinders from reaching these aims.

The book is devoted to dynamics of axially moving material objects of low flexural stiffness that are referred to as webs. Webs are moving at high speed, for example, in paper production the paper webs are transported with longitudinal speeds of up to 3000 m/min. Above the critical speed one can expect various dynamical instabilities mainly of divergent and flutter type.

The up-to-date state of investigations conducted in the field of the axially moving system dynamics is presented in the beginning of the book. Special attention is paid on nonlinear dynamic investigations of translating systems. In the next chapters various mathematical models that can be employed in dynamic investigations of such objects and the results of analysis of the dynamic behavior of the axially moving orthotropic material web are presented. To make tracing the dynamic considerations easier, a paper web is the main object of investigations in the book.

The 22nd International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM) of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics was hosted by the Australasian mechanics community in the city of Adelaide during the last week of August 2008. Over 1200 delegates met to discuss the latest development in the fields of theoretical and applied mechanics. This volume records the events of the congress and contains selected papers from the sectional lectures and invited lectures presented at the congresses six mini-symposia.

Nonlinear phenomena should play a crucial role in the design and control of engineering systems and structures as they can drastically change the prevailing dynamical responses. This book covers theoretical and applications-based problems of nonlinear dynamics concerned with both discrete and continuous systems of interest in civil and mechanical engineering. They include pendulum-like systems, slender footbridges, shape memory alloys, sagged elastic cables and non-smooth problems. Pendulums can be used as a dynamic absorber mounted in high buildings, bridges or chimneys. Geometrical nonlinearities introduced by pendulum motion may change the system dynamics, and entail a rapid increase of the oscillations of both the structure and the pendulum, leading to full pendulum rotation or chaotic dynamics. To magnetorheological damping is proposed. Nonlinear mechanics has to be used to explain undesired response in slender footbridges, such as that occurred in the famous event of the London Millenium Bridge. The observed phenomena can be explained by an analytical nonlinear discrete-time model. Shape memory alloys (SMAs) exhibit very interesting nonlinear thermo-mechanical properties such as shape memory effect and superelasticity. SMA elements integrated within composite beams or plates can be used for active modification of structure properties e.g. by affecting their natural frequencies. Finite amplitude, resonant, forced dynamics of sagged, horizontal or inclined, elastic cables have recently undergone meaningful research advances concerned with modelling, analysis, response, and nonlinear/nonregular phenomena. A variety of features of nonlinear multimodal interaction in different resonance conditions are comparatively addressed. Non-smooth systems are very common in engineering practice. Three mechanical engineering problems are presented: (i) a vibro-impact system in the form of a moling device, (ii) the influence of the opening and closing of a fatigue crack on the host system dynamics, and (iii) nonlinear interactions between a rotor and snubber ring system. This book is aimed at a wide audience of engineers and researchers working in the field of nonlinear structural vibrations and dynamics, and undergraduate and postgraduate students reading mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering.

Optimal analysis is defined as an analysis that creates and uses sparse, well-structured and well-conditioned matrices. The focus is on efficient methods for eigensolution of matrices involved in static, dynamic and stability analyses of symmetric and regular structures, or those general structures containing such components. Powerful tools are also developed for configuration processing, which is an important issue in the analysis and design of space structures and finite element models.
Different mathematical concepts are combined to make the optimal analysis of structures feasible. Canonical forms from matrix algebra, product graphs from graph theory and symmetry groups from group theory are some of the concepts involved in the variety of efficient methods and algorithms presented.
The algorithms elucidated in this book enable analysts to handle large-scale structural systems by lowering their computational cost, thus fulfilling the requirement for faster analysis and design of future complex systems. The value of the presented methods becomes all the more evident in cases where the analysis needs to be repeated hundreds or even thousands of times, as for the optimal design of structures by different metaheuristic algorithms.
The book is of interest to anyone engaged in computer-aided analysis and design and software developers in this field. Though the methods are demonstrated mainly through skeletal structures, continuum models have also beenadded to show the generality of the methods. The concepts presented are not only applicable to different types of structures but can also be used for the analysis of other systems such as hydraulic and electrical networks."

The bookopens with a derivation of kinematically nonlinear 3-D continuum mechanics for solids.
Then the principle of virtual work is utilizedto derive thesimpler, kinematically linear 3-D theory and to provide the foundation for developing consistent theories of kinematic nonlinearity and linearity for specialized continua, such as beams and plates, and finite element methods for these structures.
A formulation in terms of the versatile Budiansky-Hutchinson notation is used as basis for the theories for these structures and structural elements, as well as for an in-depth treatment of structural instability.

The International Symposium on the History of Machines and Mechanisms is the main activity of the Permanent Commission (PC) for the History of Mechanism and Machine Science (HMM) of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM). The first symposium, HMM2000, was initiated by Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and was held at the University of Cassino (Cassino, Italy) on May 11-13, 2000. The second symposium, HMM2004, was chaired by Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and held at the same venue on May 12-15, 2004. The third symposium, HMM2008, was chaired by Dr. Hong-Sen Yan and held at the National Cheng Kung University (Tainan, Taiwan) on November 11-14, 2008. The mission of IFToMM is to promote research and development in the field of machines and mechanisms by theoretical and experimental methods, along with their practical applications. The aim of HMM2008 is to establish an international forum for presenting and discussing historical developments in the field of Mechanism and Machine Science (MMS). The subject area covers all aspects of the development of HMM, such as machine, mechanism, kinematics, design method, etc., that are related to people, events, objects, anything that assisted in the development of the HMM, and presented in the forms of reasoning and ar- ments, demonstration and identification, and description and evaluation.

This book is an attempt to provide a uni?ed methodology to derive models for fatigue life. This includes S-N, ?-N and crack propagation models. This is not a conventional book aimed at describing the fatigue fundamentals, but rather a book in which the basic models of the three main fatigue approaches, the stress-based, the strain-based and the fracture mechanics approaches, are contemplated from a novel and integrated point of view. On the other hand, as an alternative to the preferential attention paid to deterministic models based on the physical, phenomenological and empirical description of fatigue, their probabilistic nature is emphasized in this book, in which stochastic fatigue and crack growth models are presented. This book is the result of a long period of close collaborationbetween its two authors who, although of di?erent backgrounds, mathematical and mechanical, both have a strong sense of engineering with respect to the fatigue problem. When the authors of this book ?rst approached the fatigue ?eld in 1982 (twenty six years ago), they found the following scenario: 1. Linear, bilinear or trilinear models were frequently proposed by relevant laboratoriesandacademiccenterstoreproducetheW] ohler?eld. Thiswas the case of well known institutions, which justi?ed these models based on clientrequirementsorpreferences. Thisledtotheinclusionofsuchmodels and methods as, for example, the up-and-down, in standards and o?cial practical directives (ASTM, Euronorm, etc.), which have proved to be unfortunate."