Metal Oxide Nanoparticles in Organic Solvents discusses recent advances in the chemistry involved for the controlled synthesis and assembly of metal oxide nanoparticles, the characterizations required by such nanoobjects, and their size and shape depending properties. In the last few years, a valuable alternative to the well-known aqueous sol-gel processes was developed in the form of nonaqueous solution routes. Metal Oxide Nanoparticles in Organic Solvents reviews and compares surfactant- and solvent-controlled routes, as well as providing an overview of techniques for the characterization of metal oxide nanoparticles, crystallization pathways, the physical properties of metal oxide nanoparticles, their applications in diverse fields of technology, and their assembly into larger nano- and mesostructures. Researchers and postgraduates in the fields of nanomaterials and sol-gel chemistry will appreciate this book's informative approach to chemical formation mechanisms in relation to metal oxides.

The articles in this book present advanced soft methods related to genetic and evolutionary algorithms, immune systems, formulation of deterministic neural networks and Bayesian NN. Many attention is paid to hybrid systems for inverse analysis fusing soft methods and the finite element method. Numerical efficiency of these soft methods is illustrated on the analysis and design of complex engineering structures.

PREFACE The theory of differential-operator equations has been described in various monographs, but the initial physical problem which leads to these equations is often hidden. When the physical problem is studied, the mathematical proofs are either not given or are quickly explained. In this book, we give a systematic treatment of the partial differential equations which arise in elastostatic problems. In particular, we study problems which are obtained from asymptotic expansion with two scales. Here the methods of operator pencils and differential-operator equations are used. This book is intended for scientists and graduate students in Functional Analy sis, Differential Equations, Equations of Mathematical Physics, and related topics. It would undoubtedly be very useful for mechanics and theoretical physicists. We would like to thank Professors S. Yakubov and S. Kamin for helpfull dis cussions of some parts of the book. The work on the book was also partially supported by the European Community Program RTN-HPRN-CT-2002-00274. xiii INTRODUCTION In first two sections of the introduction, a classical mathematical problem will be exposed: the Laplace problem. The domain of definition will be, on the first time, an infinite strip and on the second time, a sector. To solve this problem, a well known separation of variables method will be used. In this way, the structure of the solution can be explicitly found. For more details about the separation of variables method exposed in this part, the reader can refer to, for example, the book by D. Leguillon and E. Sanchez-Palencia LS]."

This text provides an introduction, at the level of an advanced student in engineering or physics, to the field of nanomechanics and nanomechanical devices. It provides a unified discussion of solid mechanics, transducer applications, and sources of noise and nonlinearity in such devices. Demonstrated applications of these devices, as well as an introduction to fabrication techniques, are also discussed. The text concludes with an overview of future technologies, including the potential use of carbon nanotubes and other molecular assemblies.

This monograph covers phenomena of deformation and machining of granular media: macroscopic particles of different size, shape, and surface properties which typically exhibit behavior similar to fluids, as well as the behavior of solids under deformation. The book analyses the behavior of granular media in soils, rocks and stones, metals and various synthetic materials, presenting a theoretical description, applications and understanding of basic phenomena in granular matter.

Since the original publication of Noncontact Atomic Force Microscopy in 2002, the noncontact atomic force microscope (NC-AFM) has achieved remarkable progress. This second treatment deals with the following outstanding recent results obtained with atomic resolution since then: force spectroscopy and mapping with atomic resolution; tuning fork; atomic manipulation; magnetic exchange force microscopy; atomic and molecular imaging in liquids; and other new technologies. These results and technologies are now helping evolve NC-AFM toward practical tools for characterization and manipulation of individual atoms/molecules and nanostructures with atomic/subatomic resolution. Therefore, the book exemplifies how NC-AFM has become a crucial tool for the expanding fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) decided in 1992 to sponsor the fourth Symposium on Laminar-Turbulent Transition, Sendai/Japan, 1994. The objectives of the present Symposium were to deepen the fundamental knowledge of stability and laminar turbulent transition in three-dimensional and compressible flows and to contribute to recent developing technologies in the field. This Symposium followed the three previous IUTAM-Symposia (Stuttgart 1979, Novosibirsk 1984 and Toulouse 1989). The Scientific Committee selected two keynote lectures and 62 technical papers. The Symposium was held on the 5th to 9th of September, 1994, at the Sendai International Center in Sendai. The participants were 82 scientists from 10 countries. The keynote lectures have critically reviewed recent development of researches concerning the laminar-to-turbulent transition phenomena from the fundamental and the application aspects. Many papers presented were concerned about the detailed mechanism of the boundary layer transition (receptivity, secondary instability, turbulent spot and bypass transition). Particular emphasis was further placed on the transition of three-dimensional boundary layers on rotation systems and on swept wings. Attention was also given to compressible hypersonic flows."

The problems of transient interaction of deformable bodies with surrounding media are of great practical and theoretical importance. When solving the problems of this kind, the main difficulty is in the necessity to integrate jointly the system of equations which describe motion of the body and the system of equations which describe motion of the medium under the boundary conditions predetermined at the unknown (movable) curvilinear interfaces. At that, the position of these interfaces should be determined as part of the solution process. That is why, the known exact solutions in this area of mechanics of continuum have been derived mainly for the cases of idealized rigid bodies. Different aspects of the problems of transient interaction of bodies and structures with continuum (derivation of the efficient mathematical mod els for the phenomenon, development of the theoretical and experimental methods to be used for study of the transient problems of mechanics, etc.) were considered in the books by S.U. Galiev, A.N. Guz, V.D. Kubenko, V.B. Poruchikov, L.L Slepyan, A.S. Volmir, and Yu.S. Yakovlev. The results presented by these authors make interest when solving a great variety of problems and show a necessity of joint usage of the results obtained in differ ent areas: aerohydrodynamics, theory of elasticity and plasticity, mechanics of soils, theory of shells and plates, applied and computational mathemat ics, etc.

Science is for those who learn; poetry for those who know. -Joseph Roux This book is a continuation of my previous book, Dynamics and Control of Structures [44]. The expanded book includes three additional chapters and an additional appendix: Chapter 3, "Special Models"; Chapter 8, "Modal Actuators and Sensors"; and Chapter 9, "System Identification. " Other chapters have been significantly revised and supplemented with new topics, including discrete-time models of structures, limited-time and -frequency grammians and reduction, almo- balanced modal models, simultaneous placement of sensors and actuators, and structural damage detection. The appendices have also been updated and expanded. Appendix A consists of thirteen new Matlab programs. Appendix B is a new addition and includes eleven Matlab programs that solve examples from each chapter. In Appendix C model data are given. Several books on structural dynamics and control have been published. Meirovitch's textbook [108] covers methods of structural dynamics (virtual work, d'Alambert's principle, Hamilton's principle, Lagrange's and Hamilton's equations, and modal analysis of structures) and control (pole placement methods, LQG design, and modal control). Ewins's book [33] presents methods of modal testing of structures. Natke's book [111] on structural identification also contains excellent material on structural dynamics. Fuller, Elliot, and Nelson [40] cover problems of structural active control and structural acoustic control.

This monograph is intended to provide a snapshot of the status and opportunities for advan cement in the technologies of dynamics and control oflarge flexible spacecraft structures. It is a reflection ofthe serious dialog and assessments going on all over the world, across a wide variety of scientific and technical disciplines, as we contemplate the next major milestone in mankind's romance with space: the transition from exploration and experimentation to commercial and defense exploitation. This exploitation is already in full swing in the space communications area. Both military and civilian objectives are being pursued with increasingly more sophisticated systems such as large antenna reflectors with active shape control. Both the NATO and Warsaw pact alliances are pursuing permanent space stations in orbit: large structural systems whose development calls for in-situ fabrication and/or assembly and whose operation will demand innovations in controls technology. The last ten years have witnessed a fairly brisk research activity in the dynamics and control oflarge space structures in orderto establish a technology base forthe development of advanced spacecraft systems envisioned for the future. They have spanned a wide spectrum of activity from fundamental methods development to systems concept studies and laboratory experimentation and demonstrations. Some flight experiments have also been conducted for various purposes such as the characterization of the space enviroment, durability of materials and devices in that environment, assembly and repair operations, and the dynamic behavior of flexible structures. It is this last area that has prompted this monogram."

The general objective of the Tenth Canadian Fracture Conference was to respond to progress in the engineering sciences - in particular with r- pect to rapidly developing new trends in the theory and methodology of researcr and designing - and to the resulting needs of practical engineering in the specific field of fracture mechanics and related areas of engineering mechanics. The basic underlying issue is the theory and practice of physical analytical and iconic (reduced) modelling of the actually involved physical processes and of the responses of physical bodies and systems to actual energy flow - a problem which is becoming dominant in all fields of the natural sciences. Accordingly, the theme of the CFCIO was "Modelling Problems in Crack Tip Mechanics," a well defined and limited subject, the scope of treatment of which can be as deep and as comprehensive as an in volved researcher wishes it to be."

The aim of the present book is the formulation, mathematical study and numerical treatment of static and dynamic problems in mechanics and engineering sciences involving nonconvex and nonsmooth energy functions, or nonmonotone and multivalued stress-strain laws. Such problems lead to a new type of variational forms, the hemivariational inequalities, which also lead to multivalued differential or integral equations. Innovative numerical methods are presented for the treament of realistic engineering problems. This book is the first to deal with variational theory of engineering problems involving nonmonotone multivalue realations, their mechanical foundation, their mathematical study (existence and certain approximation results) and the corresponding eigenvalue and optimal control problems. All the numerical applications give innovative answers to as yet unsolved or partially solved engineering problems, e.g. the adhesive contact in cracks, the delamination problem, the sawtooth stress-strain laws in composites, the shear connectors in composite beams, the semirigid connections in steel structures, the adhesive grasping in robotics, etc. The book closes with the consideration of hemivariational inequalities for fractal type geometries and with the neural network approach to the numerical treatment of hemivariational inequalities.

Polymer composites were introduced for the aerospace industry as light, strong, stiff materials, and adopted by the construction and automobile industries, among others. Meanwhile, composite materials have been introduced to fulfill the uses that these conventional materials could not, such as in extreme environments. The research for new composites includes not only new polymer systems, but metals, ceramics and intermetallic systems as well. This volume contains a selection of recent work by leading researchers in micromechanics on the topics of prediction of overall properties of elastic, perfectly bonded systems, problems associated with inelastic deformation of the phase, debonding at interfaces and growth of distributed damage. Many familiar aspects of mechanical behavior, such as fatigue, fracture, strength and buckling, etc. have been reexamined and adapted for these new systems.

Here for the first time in one book is a comprehensive and systematic approach to the dynamic modeling and control of biped locomotion robots. A survey is included of various approaches to the control of biped robots, and a new approach to the control of biped systems based on a complete dynamic model is presented in detail. The stability of complete biped system is presented for the first time as a highly nonlinear dynamic system. Also included is new software for the synthesis of a dynamically stable walk for arbitrary biped systems, presented here for the first time. A survey of various realizations of biped systems and numerous numerical examples are given. The reader is given a deep insight into the entire area of biped locomotion. The book covers all relevant approaches to the subject and gives the most complete account to date of dynamic modeling, control and realizations of biped systems.

During the last two decades more and more universities offer courses on modern structural reliability theory. A course on structural reliability theory is now a natural part of the curri culum for mechanical and structural engineering students. As a result of this, a number of textbooks have been published in this decade. In PlOst of these books it is shown how the reliability of single structural members can be evaluated in a rational way. The methods used are usually so-called level 2 methods, i. e. methods involving certain approximate iter ative calculations to obtain an approximate value of the probability of failure of the struc tural members. In these methods the joint probability distribution of relevant variables (re sistance variables, loads, etc. ) is simplified and the failure criteria are idealized in such a way that the reliability calculations can be performed without an unreasonable amount of work. In spite of the approximations and idealizations made it is believed that a rational treatment of uncertainties in structural engineering can be obtained by level 2 methods. Usually, in sufficient data are at hand to make a more advanced estimate of the reliability of a struc tural member. It has been recognized for many years that a fully satisfactory estimate of the reliability of a structure must be based on a systems approach. In some situations it is sufficient to estimate the reliability of the individual structural members of a structural system."

Phenomena occurring during a contact of two bodies are encountered in everyday life. In reality almost every type of motion is related to frictional contact between a moving body and a ground. Moreover, modeling of simple and more complex processes as nailing, cutting, vacuum pressing, movement of machines and their elements, rolling or, finally, a numerical simulation of car crash tests, requires taking contact into account. Therefore, its analysis has been a subject of many research efforts for a long time now. However, it is author's opinion that there are relatively few efforts related to contact between structural elements, like beams, plates or shells. The purpose of this work is to fill this gap. It concerns the beam-to-beam contact as a specific case of the 3D solids contact. A numerical formulation of frictional contact for beams with two shapes of cross-section is derived. Further, a couple of effective methods for modeling of smooth curves representing beam axes are presented. A part of the book is also devoted to analyze some aspects of thermo-electro-mechanical coupling in contact of thermal and electric conductors. Analyses in every chapter are illustrated with numerical examples showing the performance of derived contact finite elements.

Recent advances in the development of high strength materials, coupled with more advanced computational methods and design procedures, have led to a new generation of tall and slender buildings. These structures are very sensitive to the most common dynamic loads; wind and earthquakes. The primary requirement for a successful design is to provide safety while taking into account serviceability requirements. This book provides a well-balanced and broad coverage of the information needed for the design of structural systems for wind- and earthquake-resistant buildings. It covers topics such as the basic concepts in structural dynamics and structural systems, the assessment of wind and earthquake loads acting on the system, the evaluation of the system response to such dynamic loads and the design for extreme loading. The text is generously illustrated and supported by numerical examples and will be of great interest to practising engineers and researchers in structural, civil and design engineering and also to architects. The author has drawn on his experience as a teacher, researcher and consultant.

Shell structures and their components are applied in many engineering fields. Designers are attaching ever increasing importance to nonlinear responses such as large deformations, instabilities and nonlinear material properties in their design analysis. This volume presents a careful selection of papers from the ICES '88 Conference covering various aspects of nonlinear shell responses.

This second volume of the series on photorefractive effects focuses on the most recent developments in the field and highlights the parameters which govern the photoinduced nonlinearity. Besides reviewing conventional electro-optic crystals, this book deals with organic photorefractive materials, giving an in-depth assessment of the present understanding of the effect in a variety of materials. The materials considered in this volume will play a significant role in the development of applications such as presented in the third volume.

In 1975 we and four of our former colleagues wrote the textbook Principles of Tribology. That book was very successful both in the United Kingdom and overseas and it is still being sold today. However, 13 years after the first publication of the book, the publishers suggested that we should consider revising the text, to include the more important developments which had taken place in the meantime. Although we have remained active in tribological research, it was only when we started work on this revision that we realised that the developments which have taken place have been so extensive that they could not be accommodated simply by revision of our existing text. As a result, although we have reused some of our original material, the present book has resulted from a complete reappraisal of our ideas on the necessary content of a modern introductory textbook on tribology. As the title of the book implies, it has been our intention to write a book which will provide a thorough grounding in the principles of our subject for undergraduates and new research workers and will also act as a basic reference book for practising designers. In the areas of friction and wear, although there has been a great deal of high-quality research on the underlying physical and mechanical processes, there are no current, or indeed foreseeable, models which will allow quantitative predictions of friction coefficients or wear rates from basic physical, chemical and mechanical properties.

Integrating macroscopic properties with observations at lower levels, this book details advances in multiscale modelling and analysis pertaining to classes of composites which either have a wider range of relevant microstructural scales, such as metals, or do not have a very well-defined microstructure, e.g. cementitious or ceramic composites. The IUTAM symposia proceedings provide a platform for extensive further discussion and research.

In recent years, discretization methods have been proposed which are more flexible and which have the potential of capturing (moving) discontinuities in a robust and efficient manner. This monograph assembles contributions of leading experts with the most recent developments in this rapidly evolving field. It provides the most comprehensive coverage of state-of-the art numerical methods for treating discontinuities in mechanics.

Granular or particulate materials arise in almost every aspect of our lives, including many familiar materials such as tea, coffee, sugar, sand, cement and powders. At some stage almost every industrial process involves a particulate material, and it is usually the cause of the disruption to the smooth running of the process. In the natural environment, understanding the behaviour of particulate materials is vital in many geophysical processes such as earthquakes, landslides and avalanches. This book is a collection of current research from some of the major contributors in the topic of modelling the behaviour of granular materials. Papers from every area of current activity are included, such as theoretical, numerical, engineering and computational approaches. This book illustrates the numerous diverse approaches to one of the outstanding problems of modern continuum mechanics.

This volume contains the written texts of the papers presented at a Symposium on Buckling of Structures held at Harvard University in June 1974. This symposium, one of several on various topics sponsored annually by the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Me chanics (IUTAM), was organized by a Scientific Committee consisting of B. Budiansky (Chairman), A. H. Chilver, W. T. Koiter, and A. S. Vol' mir. Participation was by invitation of the Scientific Committee, and specific lecturers were invited to speak in the areas of experimental research, buckling and post-buckling calculations, post-buckling mode interaction, plasticity and creep effects, dynamic buckling, stochastic problems, and design. A total of 29 lectures were delivered, including a general opening lecture by Professor Koiter, and there were 93 reg istered participants from 16 different countries. Financial support for the symposium was provided by IUTAM, in the form of partial travel support for a number of participants, and also by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Re search, for additional travel support and administrative expenses. Meeting facilities and services were efficiently provided by the Science Center of Harvard University, and administrative support was gen erously provided by the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics of Harvard University. The scientific chairman enjoyed the invaluable assistance of his colleagues Professors J. W. Hutchinson and J. L."