Models should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. For the physics of polymeric liquids, whose relevant lengths and time scales are out of reach for first principles calculations, this means that we have to choose a minimum set of sufficiently detailed descriptors such as architecture (linear, ring, branched), connectivity, semiflexibility, stretchability, excluded volume, and hydrodynamic interaction. These 'universal' fluids allow the prediction of material properties under external flow- or electrodynamic fields, the results being expressed in terms of reference units, specific for any particular chosen material. This book provides an introduction to the kinetic theory and computer simulation methods needed to handle these models and to interpret the results. Also included are a number of sample applications and computer codes.

This volume contains eight contributions on the common theme of masonry construction. The publication coincides with the retirement of Dr Jacques Heyman from his Professorship of Engineering in the University of Cambridge, and Headship of the University's Engineering Department. It is entirely appropriate to have a collection of papers in honour of Professor Heyman at this time; for he has made signal contributions to our understanding of masonry construction over the past thirty years or so. It is no exaggeration to say that he has radically changed the way in which engineers think about masonry structures, particularly in relation to the old ecclesiastical buildings and bridges. Indeed it is hard to imagine what this subject would be like today in the absence of Professor Heyman's seminal papers.

This fascinating new book examines the issues of earthquake geotechnical engineering in a comprehensive way. It summarizes the present knowledge on earthquake hazards and their causative mechanisms as well as a number of other relevant topics. Information obtained from earthquake damage investigation (such as ground motion, landslides, earth pressure, fault action, or liquefaction) as well as data from laboratory tests and field investigation is supplied, together with exercises/questions.

Plasticity and Geotechnics is the first attempt to summarize and present in a single volume the major achievements in the field of plasticity theory for geotechnical materials and its applications to geotechnical analysis and design. The book emerges from the author's belief that there is an urgent need for the geotechnical and solid mechanics community to have a unified presentation of plasticity theory and its application to geotechnical engineering.

Gives a comprehensive and coherent account of the basic methods to characterize a solid through its interaction with an electromagnetic field.

This book presents a unified hierarchical formulation of theories for three-dimensional continua, two-dimensional shells, one-dimensional rods, and zero-dimensional points. It allows readers with varying backgrounds easy access to fundamental understanding of these powerful Cosserat theories.

The topics covered include soil mechanics and porous media, glacier and ice dynamics, climatology and lake physics, climate change as well as numerical algorithms. The book, written by well-known experts, addresses researchers and students interested in physical aspects of our environment.

The mathematical theory of contact mechanics is a growing field in engineering and scientific computing. This book is intended as a unified and readily accessible source for mathematicians, applied mathematicians, mechanicians, engineers and scientists, as well as advanced students. The first part describes models of the processes involved like friction, heat generation and thermal effects, wear, adhesion and damage. The second part presents many mathematical models of practical interest and demonstrates the close interaction and cross-fertilization between contact mechanics and the theory of variational inequalities. The last part reviews further results, gives many references to current research and discusses open problems and future developments. The book can be read by mechanical engineers interested in applications. In addition, some theorems and their proofs are given as examples for the mathematical tools used in the models.

Wave propagation is an important topic in engineering sciences, especially, in the field of solid mechanics. A description of wave propagation phenomena is given by Graff 98]: The effect of a sharply applied, localized disturbance in a medium soon transmits or 'spreads' to other parts of the medium. These effects are familiar to everyone, e.g., transmission of sound in air, the spreading of ripples on a pond of water, or the transmission of radio waves. From all wave types in nature, here, attention is focused only on waves in solids. Thus, solely mechanical disturbances in contrast to electro-magnetic or acoustic disturbances are considered. of waves - the compression wave similar to the In solids, there are two types pressure wave in fluids and, additionally, the shear wave. Due to continual reflec tions at boundaries and propagation of waves in bounded solids after some time a steady state is reached. Depending on the influence of the inertia terms, this state is governed by a static or dynamic equilibrium in frequency domain. However, if the rate of onset of the load is high compared to the time needed to reach this steady state, wave propagation phenomena have to be considered."

In recent years meshless/meshfree methods have gained a 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. The book presents a significant sample of the state of the art in the field with methods that have reached a certain level of maturity while also addressing many open issues.

The book collects extended original contributions presented at the first ECCOMAS Conference on Meshless Methods held in 2005 in Lisbon. The list of contributors reveals a mix of highly distinguished authors as well as quite young but very active and promising researchers, thus giving the reader an interesting and updated view of different mesh reduction methods and its range of applications. The material presented is appropriate for researchers, engineers, physicists, applied mathematicians and graduate students interested in this active research area.

Numerous applications of rod structures in civil engineering, aircraft and spacecraft confirm the importance of the topic. On the other hand the majority of books on structural mechanics use some simplifying hypotheses; these hypotheses do not allow to consider some important effects, for instance the boundary layer effects near the points of junction of rods. So the question concerning the limits of applicability of structural mechanics hypotheses and the possibilities of their refinement arise. In this connection the asymptotic analysis of equations of mathematical physics, the equations of elasticity in rod structures (without these hypotheses and simplifying assumptions being imposed) is undertaken in the present book. Moreover, a lot of modern structures are made of composite materials and therefore the material of the rods is not homogeneous. This inhomogeneity of the material can generate some unexpected effects. These effects are analysed in this book. The methods of multi-scale modelling are presented by the homogenization, multi-level asymptotic analysis and the domain decomposition. These methods give an access to a new class of hybrid models combining macroscopic description with "microscopic zooms."

I want to thank R. L. Fosdick, M. E. Gurtin and W. O. Williams for their detailed criticism of the manuscript. I also thank F. Davi, M. Lembo, P. Nardinocchi and M. Vianello for valuable remarks prompted by their reading of one or another of the many previous drafts, from 1988 to date. Since it has taken me so long to bring this writing to its present form, many other colleagues and students have episodically offered useful comments and caught mistakes: a list would risk to be incomplete, but I am heartily grateful to them all. Finally, I thank V. Nicotra for skillfully transforming my hand sketches into book-quality figures. P. PODIO-GUIDUGLI Roma, April 2000 Journal of Elasticity 58: 1-104,2000. 1 P. Podio-Guidugli, A Primer in Elasticity. (c) 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. CHAPTER I Strain 1. Deformation. Displacement Let 8 be a 3-dimensional Euclidean space, and let V be the vector space associated with 8. We distinguish a point p E 8 both from its position vector p(p):= (p-o) E V with respect to a chosen origin 0 E 8 and from any triplet (~1, ~2, ~3) E R3 of coordinates that we may use to label p. Moreover, we endow V with the usual inner product structure, and orient it in one of the two possible manners. It then makes sense to consider the inner product a .

Inelastic media constitute a rich source of interesting and important problems in theoretical, experimental and computationalmechanics. Signi?cantinsightshavebeengainedthroughstudiesofthemathematicalchar- teristics of new models. New constitutive theories have lead to variational and other formulations that are generally more complex, often highly nonlinear, and requ- ing new tools for their successful resolution. Likewise, there have been signi?cant advances of a computational nature, coupled to the development of new algorithms for solving such problems in discrete form. It is clear, therefore, that research in the broad area of inelastic media offers c- temporary investigators a range of challenges which are most fruitfully addressed througha combinationof theoretical, experimentaland computationalavenues.F- thermore, the ?eld is truly multidisciplinary in nature, drawing on the expertise of specialists in materials science, various branches of engineering, mathematics, and physics, and bene?ting from integrative approaches to the solution of problems. The objective of the IUTAM Symposium on Theoretical, Modelling and C- putational Aspects of Inelastic Media, held in Cape Town over the period 14-18 January 2008, was to provide a forum in which experts engaged in a spectrum of activities underthe theme of inelastic media could discussrecent developments, and also identify key open problem

This is a unique collection of papers, all written by leading specialists, that presents the most recent results and advances in stability theory as it relates to fluid flows. The stability property is of great interest for researchers in many fields, including mathematical analysis, theory of partial differential equations, optimal control, numerical analysis, and fluid mechanics. This text will be essential reading for many researchers working in these fields.

PMThis is the first of two books on methods and techniques in the calculus of variations. Contemporary arguments are used throughout the text to streamline and present in a unified way classical results, and to provide novel contributions at the forefront of the theory. This book addresses fundamental questions related to lower semicontinuity and relaxation of functionals within the unconstrained setting, mainly in L p spaces. It prepares the ground for the second volume where the variational treatment of functionals involving fields and their derivatives will be undertaken within the framework of Sobolev spaces. This book is self-contained. All the statements are fully justified and proved, with the exception of basic results in measure theory, which may be found in any good textbook on the subject. It also contains several exercises. Therefore,it may be used both as a graduate textbook as well as a reference text for researchers in the field. Irene Fonseca is the Mellon College of Science Professor of Mathematics and is currently the Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests lie in the areas of continuum mechanics, calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. Giovanni Leoni is also a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. He focuses his research on calculus of variations, partial differential equations and geometric measure theory with special emphasis on applications to problems in continuum mechanics and in materials scienc

Within the last thirty years there is a growing acknowledgement that prevention of catastrophic failures necessitates engagement of a large pool of expertise. Herein it is not excessive to seek advice from disciplines like materials science, structural engineering, mathematics, physics, reliability engineering and even economics. Today's engineering goals, independently of size; do not have the luxury of being outsideaglobalperspective.Survivaloftheintegratedmarketsand?nancialsystems require a web of safe transportation, energy production and product manufacturing. It is perhaps the ?rst decade in engineering history that multidisciplinary - proaching is not just an idea that needs to materialise but has matured beyond infancy. We can witness such transition by examining engineering job descriptions and postgraduate curricula. The undertaking of organising a conference to re?ect the above was not easy and de?nitely, not something that was brought to life without a lot of work and c- st mitment. The 1 Conference of Engineering Against Fracture from its conceptual day until completion was designed in a way of underlying the need of bringing all the key players on a common ground that once properly cultivated can ?ourish. To achieve that the conference themes were numerous and despite their, in principle notional differences, it was apparent that the attendees established such common ground through argumentation. The reader can see this from the variety of research areas re?ected by the works and keynote lecturers presented.

Fuzzy logic is a relatively new concept in science applications. Hitherto, fuzzy logic has been a conceptual process applied in the field of risk management. Its potential applicability is much wider than that, however, and its particular suitability for expanding our understanding of processes and information in science and engineering in our post-modern world is only just beginning to be appreciated.

Written as a companion text to the author's earlier volume "An Introduction to Fuzzy Logic Applications," the book is aimed at professional engineers and students and those with an interest in exploring the potential of fuzzy logic as an information processing kit with a wide variety of practical applications in the field of engineering science and develops themes and topics introduced in the author's earlier text.

L.A. Galin s book on contact problems is a remarkable work. Actually there are two books: the first, published in 1953 deals with contact problems in the classical theory of elasticity; this is the one that was translated into English in 1961. The second book, published in 1980, included the first, and then had new sections on contact problems for viscoelastic materials, and rough contact problems; this section has not previously been translated into English.

In this new translation, the original text and the mathematical analysis have been completely revised, new material has been added, and the material appearing in the 1980 Russian translation has been completely rewritten.

In addition there are three essays by students of Galin, bringing the analysis up to date."

This is the second edition of the valuable reference source for numerical simulations of contact mechanics suitable for many fields. These include civil engineering, car design, aeronautics, metal forming, or biomechanics. For this second edition, illustrative simplified examples and new discretisation schemes and adaptive procedures for coupled problems are added. This book is at the cutting edge of an area of significant and growing interest in computational mechanics.

This book offers an easy to read, all-embracing history of thermodynamics. It describes the long development of thermodynamics, from the misunderstood and misinterpreted to the conceptually simple and extremely useful theory that we know today. Coverage identifies not only the famous physicists who developed the field, but also engineers and scientists from other disciplines who helped in the development and spread of thermodynamics as well.

Computational Mechanics in solids, structures and coupled problems in engineering is today a mature science with applications to major industrial designs. This book reflects the state of art and it is written by some of the world leading authorities in this field, addressing such topics as: design and topology optimisation, inverse engineering, multibody dynamics, non-linear and railway dynamics, non-linear and textile composites, sandwich structures, uncertainty and reliability of structures, micromechanics of biological materials, computational geometry, multiscale strategies, discrete and mesh free elements, hybrid crack element, adaptive mesh generation, neural networks, structural model validation, vibro-acoustics, active aeroelastic structures, shells with incompressible flows, fluid-structure interaction, aeroelasticity, fluid-saturated and damage porous media and ceramics, high porosity solids, multiphase viscous porous material and masonry. This book contains the edited version of some Plenary and Keynote Lectures presented at the III European Conference on Computational Mechanics: Solids, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering (ECCM-2006), held in the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal, 5th - 8th June 2006.

This book highlights some of the most important structural, chemical, mechanical and tribological characteristics of DLC films. It is particularly dedicated to the fundamental tribological issues that impact the performance and durability of these coatings. The book provides reliable and up-to-date information on available industrial DLC coatings and includes clear definitions and descriptions of various DLC films and their properties.

This series presents critical reviews of the present and future trends in polymer and biopolymer science including chemistry, physical chemistry, physics and materials science. It is addressed to all scientists at universities and in industry who wish to keep abreast of advances in the topics covered.

Impact Factor Ranking: Always number one in Polymer Science. More information as well as the electronic version of the whole content available at: www.springerlink.com

Geomaterials consist of a mixture of solid particles and void space that may be ?lled with ?uid and gas. The solid particles may be di?erent in sizes, shapes, and behavior; and the pore liquid may have various physical and chemical properties. Hence, physical, chemical or electrical interaction - tween the solid particles and pore ?uid or gas may take place. Therefore, the geomaterials in general must be considered a mixture or a multiphase material whose state is described by physical quantities in each phase. The stresses carried by the solid skeleton are typically termed "e?ective stress" while the stresses carried by the pore liquid are termed "pore pressure. " The summation of the e?ective stress and pore pressure is termed "total stress" (Terzaghi, 1943). For a free drainage condition or completely undrained c- dition, the pore pressure change is zero or depends only on the initial stress condition; it does not depend on the skeleton response to external forces. Therefore, a single phase description of soil behavior is adequate. For an intermediate condition, however, some ?ow (pore pressure leak) may take place while the force is applied and the skeleton is under deformation. Due to the leak of pore pressure, the pore pressure changes with time, and the e?ective stress changes and the skeleton deforms with time accordingly. The solution of this intermediate condition, therefore, requires a multi-phase c- tinuum formulations that may address the interaction of solid skeleton and pore liquid interaction.

This book examines the testing and modeling of materials and structures under dynamic loading conditions. Readers get an in-depth analysis of the current mathematical modeling and simulation tools available for a variety of materials, alongside discussions of the benefits and limitations of these tools in industrial design. Following a logical and well organized structure, this volume uniquely combines experimental procedures with numerical simulation, and provides many examples.