UC Libraries-Supported Open Access Monographs

This book covers the essential elements of engineering mechanics for mechanical elements in tension-compression, torsion, and bending. Its approach emphasizes a fundamental bottom-up approach to the subject for a concise and uncluttered presentation. Each problem class is firmly rooted in its underlying kinematic assumption, and the concepts of equilibrium and material response are carefully separated. The technical theory is connected to the three-dimensional theory with a careful emphasis on kinematic assumptions and the selected use of material models for plastic response, as well as composite or inhomogeneous material distributions. Buckling phenomena and the principles of stationary potential energy and stationary complementary potential energy are covered in detail for both exact as well as approximate solutions. The principles of virtual work – virtual displacements and virtual forces – are treated, and their relation to potential energy methods as well as the basic elements of kinematics, equilibrium, and material constitutive response are fully discussed.

This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the University of California Libraries.