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Reading list on solid mechanics for engineering students
If you are an engineering student and going to study solid mechanics, you may have a question: "what are the best books on solid mechanics which I should read to gain a firm background?" Your advisor may give you some suggestions, but you still want to know what other people read or study. It is better to follow a good reading list to study a subject step by step. And also your advisor may give you a list, but that one may work only for the topics your advisor wants you know. Is there a general reading list one can follow to gain a solid understanding on solid mechanics? This might be a question most students have.
We have many discussions in iMechanica about the solid mechanics books. You can find some good books in Dr Suo's lecture notes of Solid Mechanics class. Allan F Bower has a free online Solid Mechanics Textbook, as Konstantin Volokh said it is "an encyclopedic textbook covering the most of the modern solid mechanics." In addition, we have a list of Lecture notes on mechanics for all kinds of purposes. It seems we have variety of materials to study. But for a young engineering student who just started to learn solid mechanics. Do we have some suggestions for these to study step by step? I found a bibliography on solid mechanics in Dr James R. Rice's introduction to the continuum mechanics of solids is very helpful. With the help of that, in my opinion, the following might be a good and short reading list for engineering students to study solid mechanics step by step:
- F. P. Beer, E. R. Johnston, E. R. Eisenberg, et al, Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Statics and Dynamics.
- F. P. Beer, E. R. Johnston and J. T. DeWolf, Mechanics of Materials.
- L. E. Malvern, Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous Medium.
- S. Timoshenko and J. N. Goodier, Theory of Elasticity.
- A. E. Green and W. Zerna, Theoretical Elasticity.
- L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifschitz, Theory of Elasticity.
The last three books are for advanced students who are going to study Elasticity. I am going to keep this list up to date. Because I am still learning this subject, please let me know if you have some comments.
- Kewei Li's blog
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Comments
books
I loaned one of my masters students the book "Mechanical Metallurgy" by George Dieter and she was stunned by the content and the relevance (although her project is on biological materials so not clearly related): the practical chapters are extremely useful and I personally can blame this text for my having switched from a BS degree in Materials to an MS in applied mechanics!
Hi, Dr Michelle L.
Hi, Dr Michelle L. Oyen:
Thank you very much for your suggestion of George's book! I am going to take a look. BTW, for the biological material I am going to post another list of some good texts on Biomechanics, especially the theory of Finite Elasticity.
About Plasticity
Do you have some suggestions for some books about plasticty? Thanks
Plasticity
Hi, Huan:
Since I am not quite familiar with plasticity, but you can refer to Dr James R. Rice's publication on Solid Mechanics in which you can find some suggestions on Plasticity.
Plasticity-2
Huan,
After 1.5 years study in crashworthiness of both passenger car and heavy-duty truck, I have read several book shown as follows.
Most of them are somehow related with Plasticity.
Hope they could help.
- by Eduardo de Souza Neto, EA de Souza Neto, Djordje Perić, David Owen, DRJ Owen
- by Eugenio Onate, Roger Owen, D R J Owen
- by Peter Wriggers
- by Gerhard A. Holzapfel
- by Stefan Hiermaier, Stefan Josef Hiermaier
- by Fionn Dunne, Nik Petrinic
For beginning, No.6 could be the best, although there are some printing problems.
Anyway, enjoy!