Applied Elasticity And Plasticity

"Elasticity is one of the crowning achievements of Western culture!" ex­ claimed my usually reserved colleague Professor George Zahalak during a meeting to discuss the graduate program in Solid Mechanics. Although my thoughts on the theory of elasticity had not been expressed in such noble terms, it was the same admiration for the creative efforts of the premier physicists, mathematicians and mechanicians of the 19th and 20th centuries that led me to attempt to popularize the basis of solid mechanics in this introductory form.

In their 1909 publication Théorie des corps déformables, Eugène and François Cosserat made a historic contribution to materials science by establishing the fundamental principles of the mechanics of generalized continua. The chapters collected in this volume showcase the many areas of continuum mechanics that grew out of the foundational work of the Cosserat brothers.

Volume 1 covers the basics necessary for any construction activity in foundation engineering. This systematic introduction to the assessment of soil and rock properties provides an insight into the requirements of Eurocode 7, Parts 1 and 3. It also gives details of geotechnical laboratory and field tests and the associated equipment, concise treatments of relevant solutions provided by the theories of elasticity and plasticity and numerical methods applied to solve problems of geotechnical design. The problems of earthquakes are also explained with regard to Eurocode 8.