Elastic structures, conceived as slender bodies able to transmit loads, have been studied by scientists and engineers for centuries. By the seventeenth century several useful theories of elastic structures had emerged, with applications to civil and mechanical engineering problems. In recent years improved mathematical tools have extended applications into new areas such as geomechanics and biomechanics. This book, first published in 1998, offers a critically filtered collection of the most significant theories dealing with elastic slender bodies. It includes mathematical models involving elastic structures, which are used to solve practical problems with particular emphasis on nonlinear problems. This collection of interesting and important problems in elastic structures will appeal to a broad range of scientists, engineers and graduate students working in the area of structural mechanics.

Elastic structures, conceived as slender bodies able to transmit loads, have been studied by scientists and engineers for centuries. By the seventeenth century several useful theories of elastic structures had emerged, with applications to civil and mechanical engineering problems. In recent years improved mathematical tools have extended applications into new areas such as geomechanics and biomechanics. This book, first published in 1998, offers a critically filtered collection of the most significant theories dealing with elastic slender bodies. It includes mathematical models involving elastic structures, which are used to solve practical problems with particular emphasis on nonlinear problems. This collection of interesting and important problems in elastic structures will appeal to a broad range of scientists, engineers and graduate students working in the area of structural mechanics.

Johann Bernoulli is well known in the history of mechanics for his solution of the brachistochrone problem and for his first formulation of the principle of virtual works. However, his interests extend beyond to cover almost all areas of classical mechanics including rigid bodies motions, oscillations of pendula, impacts, motions of planets, and elastic beam deformation. Bernoulli is an acute observer of physical phenomena. His problems are always inspired by concrete examples, like the work of a crane, the manoeuvre of a rudder, the inflation of a sail.