This book commemorates the 75th birthday of Prof. George Jaiani - Georgia's leading expert on shell theory. He is also well known outside Georgia for his individual approach to shell theory research and as an organizer of meetings, conferences and schools in the field. The collection of papers presented includes articles by scientists from various countries discussing the state of the art and new trends in the theory of shells, plates, and beams. Chapter 20 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book commemorates the 75th birthday of Prof. George Jaiani - Georgia's leading expert on shell theory. He is also well known outside Georgia for his individual approach to shell theory research and as an organizer of meetings, conferences and schools in the field. The collection of papers presented includes articles by scientists from various countries discussing the state of the art and new trends in the theory of shells, plates, and beams. Chapter 20 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The aim of the book is to present, in a novel and unified fashion, the elements of Mechanics in Material Space or Configurational Mechanics, with applications to fracture and defect mechanics. This mechanics, in contrast to Newtonian mechanics in physical space, is concerned with defects such as cracks and dislocations, which are embedded in the material and might move in it. The level is kept accessible to any engineer, scientist or graduate student possessing some knowledge of calculus and partial differential equations, and working in the various areas where rational use of materials is essential.

Plate and shell theories experienced a renaissance in recent years. The potentials of smart materials, the challenges of adaptive structures, the demands of thin-film technologies and more on the one hand and the availability of newly developed mathematical tools, the tremendous increase in computer facilities and the improvement of commercial software packages on the other caused a reanimation of the scientific interest. In the present book the contributions of the participants of the EUROMECH Colloquium 444 "Critical Review of the Theories of Plates and Shells and New Applications" have been collected. The aim was to discuss the common roots of different plate and shell approaches, to review the current state of the art, and to develop future lines of research. Contributions were written by scientists with civil and mechanical engineering as well as mathematical and physical background.

Plate and shell theories experienced a renaissance in recent years. The potentials of smart materials, the challenges of adaptive structures, the demands of thin-film technologies and more on the one hand and the availability of newly developed mathematical tools, the tremendous increase in computer facilities and the improvement of commercial software packages on the other caused a reanimation of the scientific interest. In the present book the contributions of the participants of the EUROMECH Colloquium 444 "Critical Review of the Theories of Plates and Shells and New Applications" have been collected. The aim was to discuss the common roots of different plate and shell approaches, to review the current state of the art, and to develop future lines of research. Contributions were written by scientists with civil and mechanical engineering as well as mathematical and physical background.

In several applications it is well recognized that all materials, on some scale, cannot be regarded as perfect continua. They rather contain a variety of numerous defects, such as micro-cracks, inclusions, vacancies, voids, dislocations, etc. To characterize such defects, the notion of "force" acting on a "defect" in the material needs to be introduced, which leads to a whole engineering science of "Configurational Mechanics of Materials". The lecture notes cover the numerous elements of configurational mechanics, including mathematical foundations, linear and nonlinear elasticity and continuum mechanics, coupled fields, fracture mechanics, as well as strength-of-materials.

The aim of the book is to present, in a novel and unified fashion, the elements of Mechanics in Material Space or Configurational Mechanics, with applications to fracture and defect mechanics. This mechanics, in contrast to Newtonian mechanics in physical space, is concerned with defects such as cracks and dislocations, which are embedded in the material and might move in it. The level is kept accessible to any engineer, scientist or graduate student possessing some knowledge of calculus and partial differential equations, and working in the various areas where rational use of materials is essential.

Aufbauend auf dem Grundkurs Technische Mechanik (Statik, Elastostatik) fuhren die Autoren in die Grundgleichungen der linearen dreidimensionalen und ebenen Elastizitatstheorie in kartesischen Koordinaten ein. Der Spannungs- und Verzerrungszustand, das Werkstoffgesetz und die Ansatze zur Loesung der Grundgleichungen werden in einzelnen Kapiteln behandelt. Die Grundlagen sind nachvollziehbar dargelegt und werden anhand von Beispielen und UEbungsaufgaben vertieft. Ziel ist es, ein tieferes Verstandnis der Zusammenhange zu vermitteln.