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Nice and low-cost introductory texts

Submitted by Konstantin Volokh on
education
Continuum mechanics; nonlinear elasticity

There are two very nice companion texts on continuum mechanics and nonlinear elasticity printed by Dover recently: "Continuum mechanics" by Spencer and "An introduction to the theory of elasticity" by Atkin and Fox. Great and fairly affordable reading!

Zhigang Suo

Thank you, Kosta, for pointing these books out.  I looked at these books before and liked them both.  Now, what would be your favorite books on nonlinear continuum mechanics, if you remove the constraint of low price?  I'd like to make sure our library have all the good books.  I'd also appreciate other people's suggestions.

Sun, 10/05/2008 - 12:22 Permalink
Konstantin Volokh

Zhigang,

The mentioned books are good even without constraints

Surprisingly a lot of continuum mechanics texts have been published recently. I would choose "Nonlinear continuum mechanics for finite element analysis" by Bonet and Wood among them.

More advanced readers can enjoy the elegance of Gurtin's short course in continuum mechanics. I also like Ogden's book, which is readable yet thorough.

The classical treatise by Truesdell and Noll should be recommended for those readers who have plenty of time.

Sun, 10/05/2008 - 13:10 Permalink
Charles Augarde

 

The book by Spencer (who died only recently) is great. As an engineer I would suggest "Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: A Continuum Approach for Engineering" by Holzapfel. It is good to look at, has useful diagrams lacking in some other books and examples to try. 

Sun, 10/05/2008 - 17:31 Permalink
Teng Li

Kosta, thanks for the heads-up.

I like Holzapfel's "Nonlinear Solid Mechanics" too. As of textbook, it has been on the recommended reading list for the Continuum Mechanics course here at Univ. Maryland. My syllabus also loosely follows the first six chapters. That's what we can manage to cover for a one-semester course here.

Mon, 10/06/2008 - 03:37 Permalink