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Uncertainty is certain to be found in structural engineering, making it crucial to structure design. This book covers three competing philosophies behind structural safety and reliability: probabilistic analysis, fuzzy set-based treatments, and the convex approach.Explaining the theory behind probabilistic analysis, fuzzy set-based treatments, and the convex approach in detail, alongside their implementation, use, and benefits, the book compares and contrasts these methods, enabling the reader to solve problems associated with uncertainty. These uncertainty issues can be seen in civil engineering structures, risk of earthquakes, impact of rough seas on ships, and turbulence affecting aerospace vehicles. Building on the authors'many years of experience in the field, Philosophies of Structural Safety and Reliability is an essential guide to structural uncertainty. Topics covered in the book include properties of materials and their structural deterioration, safety factor and reliability, risk evaluation and loads, and their combinations.This book will be of interest to students and professionals in the fields of aerospace, civil, mechanical, marine, and ocean engineering.

Fundamentals of Structural Mechanics, Dynamics, and Stability examines structural mechanics from a foundational point of view and allows students to use logical inference and creative reasoning to solve problems versus rote memorization. It presents underlying theory and emphasizes the relevant mathematical concepts as related to structural mechanics in each chapter. Problems, examples, and case studies are provided throughout, as well as simulations to help further illustrate the content.Features: Presents the material from general theory and fundamentals through to practical applications. Explains the finite element method for elastic bodies, trusses, frames, non-linear behavior of materials, and more. Includes numerous practical worked examples and case studies throughout each chapter. Fundamentals of Structural Mechanics, Dynamics, and Stability serves as a useful text for students and instructors as well as practicing engineers.

Structural Reliability Analysis and Prediction, Third Edition is a textbook which addresses the important issue of predicting the safety of structures at the design stage and also the safety of existing, perhaps deteriorating structures. Attention is focused on the development and definition of limit states such as serviceability and ultimate strength, the definition of failure and the various models which might be used to describe strength and loading. This book emphasises concepts and applications, built up from basic principles and avoids undue mathematical rigour. It presents an accessible and unified account of the theory and techniques for the analysis of the reliability of engineering structures using probability theory. This new edition has been updated to cover new developments and applications and a new chapter is included which covers structural optimization in the context of reliability analysis. New examples and end of chapter problems are also now included.

This book offers an integrated introduction to the topic of stability and vibration. Strikingly, it describes stability as a function of boundary conditions and eigenfrequency as a function of both boundary conditions and column force. Based on a post graduate course held by the author at the University of Southern Denmark, it reports on fundamental formulas and makes uses of graphical representation to promote understanding. Thanks to the emphasis put on analytical methods and numerical results, the book is meant to make students and engineers familiar with all fundamental equations and their derivation, thus stimulating them to write interactive and dynamic programs to analyze instability and vibrational modes.

This book examines how the state of underground structures can be determined with the assistance of force, deformation and energy. It then analyzes mechanized shield methods, the New Austrian tunneling method (NATM) and conventional methods from this new perspective. The book gathers a wealth of cases reflecting the experiences of practitioners and administrators alike. Based on statistical and engineering studies of these cases, as well as lab and field experiments, it develops a stability assessment approach incorporating a stable equilibrium, which enables engineers to keep the structure and surrounding rocks safe as long as the stable equilibrium and deformation compliance are maintained.The book illustrates the implementation of the method in various tunneling contexts, including soil-rock mixed strata, tunneling beneath operating roads, underwater tunnels, and tunnel pit excavation. It offers a valuable guide for researchers, designers and engineers, especially those who are seeking to understand the underlying principles of underground excavation.

1. 1 Historical Background Thin plates and shells are widely used structural elements in numerous civil, mechanical, aeronautical and marine engineering design applications. Floor slabs, bridge decks, concrete pavements, sheet pile retaining walls are all, under normal lateral loading circumstances, instances of plate bending in civil engineering. The problem of elastic instability of plates occurs when load is applied in a direction parallel to the plane of the plate. The deck of a bridge subjected to a strong wind loading, the web of a girder under the action of shear forces transmitted by the flanges, the turbine blade of a machinery undergoing longitudinal temperature differentials, would all eventually buckle when the applied load, or its temperature equivalent in the last case, exceeds a certain limit, that is the buckling load. Although the plate may exhibit a considerable post-buckling strength, the buckling load is considered in many design instances, especially in aeronautical and marine engineering, as a serviceability limit because of the abrupt and substantial change in the dimensions and shape of the buckled plate. Nevertheless, the post-buckling region retains its importance either as an essential safety margin or as a stage of loading actually reached under normal loading conditions. The design engineer will therefore need rigorous tools of analysis to predict, in addition to the buckling load, the deflections and stresses at both buckling and initial post-buckling stages.

Rapid advances in analytical methods and computing enable engineers to apply stability/stiffness methods to increasingly complex real-life cases. This advanced and graduate-level text and self-tutorial teaches readers to understand and to apply analytical design principles across the breadth of the engineering sciences. Emphasizing fundamentals, the book addresses the stability of key engineering elements such as rigid-body assemblage, beam-columns, rigid frames, thin plates, arches, rings, or shells. Each chapter contains numerous worked-out problems that clarify practical application and aid comprehension of the basics of stability theory, plus end-of-chapter review exercises. Others key features are the citing and comparison of different national building standards, use of non-dimensional parameters, and many tables with much practical data and simplified formula, that enable readers to use them in the design of structural components.

This book originally appeared as a text prepared for the Defense Nuclear Agency to summarize research on dynamic pulse buckling, by the authors and their colleagues at SRI International, during the period from 1960 to 1980. The original printing of 300 copies by the DNA Press was followed shortly by a small second printing to meet the demand by readers who heard of the book from the primary recipients. This supply was also quickly exhausted, to researchers and practicing engineers outside the DNA community and to academics who wanted to include the material in courses on elastic and plastic stability of structures. Commercial publication by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers was therefore undertaken to meet the needs of this broader community. The objective of the book was to gather into a cohesive whole material that had been published in reports and the open literature during the two decade period. In the process of knitting this material together, a substantial amount of new work was done. The book therefore contains many new results never published in the open literature.

Dynamic instability or dynamic buckling as applied to structures is a term that has been used to describe many classes of problems and many physical phenomena. It is not surprising, then, that the term finds several uses and interpretations among structural mechanicians. Problems of parametric resonance, follower-force, whirling of rotating shafts, fluid-solid interaction, general response of structures to dynamic loads, and several others are all classified under dynamic instability. Many analytical and experimental studies of such problems can be found in several books as either specialized topics or the main theme. Two such classes, parametric resonance and stability of nonconservative systems under static loads (follower-force problems), form the main theme of two books by V. V. Bolotin, which have been translated from Russian. Moreover, treatment of aero elastic instabilities can be found in several textbooks. Finally, analytical and experimental studies of structural elements and systems subjected to intense loads (of very short duration) are the focus of the recent monograph by Lindberg and Florence. The first chapter attempts to classify the various'dynamic instability'phenomena by taking into consideration the nature of the cause, the character of the response, and the history of the problem. Moreover, the various concepts and methodologies as developed and used by the various investigators for estimating critical conditions for suddenly loaded elastic systems are fully described. Chapter 2 demonstrates the concepts and criteria for dynamic stability through simple mechanical models with one and two degrees of freedom.

The monograph text is based on lectures delivered by author during many years for students of Applied Iechanics Department of Bauman Ioscow State Technical University. The monograph includes also analitical results of scientific research obtained in collaboration with industry. Progress in developing new equipment has called for a better understand­ ing of the physical peculiarities pertaining to the action of designed structures in real conditions. This is necessary for increasing the accuracy of the analysis and making these structures more reliable. It has been found that classical determined perturbations are not principal and that determinism-based methods of classical mechanics prove insufficient for understanding and explaining physical effects that arise at the operation of instruments located on moving objects, the vibration of rocket engines, the motion of a vehicle, and the action of wind and seismic loads. Therefore the necessity arose for devising a new physical model to analyze these dynamic processes and, in particular, for creating a new mathematical apparatus that would allow us to take into account non-deterministic external excitations. The theory of random processes that had been developed well enough as applied to problems of radio engineering and automatic control, where the effect produced by random excitations appeared to be commensurable with that of deterministic excitations and where the ignoring of the random ex­ citations would bring about incorrect results, became such an apparatus.

A crucial element of structural and continuum mechanics, stability theory has limitless applications in civil, mechanical, aerospace, naval and nuclear engineering. This text of unparalleled scope presents a comprehensive exposition of the principles and applications of stability analysis. It has been proven as a text for introductory courses and various advanced courses for graduate students. It is also prized as an exhaustive reference for engineers and researchers.The authors'focus on understanding of the basic principles rather than excessive detailed solutions, and their treatment of each subject proceed from simple examples to general concepts and rigorous formulations. All the results are derived using as simple mathematics as possible. Numerous examples are given and 700 exercise problems help in attaining a firm grasp of this central aspect of solid mechanics.The book is an unabridged republication of the 1991 edition by Oxford University Press and the 2003 edition by Dover, updated with 18 pages of end notes.

Non destructive testing aimed at monitoring, structural identification and di- nostics is of strategic importance in many branches of civil and mechanical - gineering. This type of tests is widely practiced and directly affects topical issues regarding the design of new buildings and the repair and monitoring of existing ones. The load bearing capacity of a structure can now be evaluated using well established mechanical modelling methods aided by computing facilities of great capability. However, to ensure reliable results, models must be calibrated with - curate information on the characteristics of materials and structural components. To this end, non destructive techniques are a useful tool from several points of view. Particularly, by measuring structural response, they provide guidance on the validation of structural descriptions or of the mathematical models of material behaviour. Diagnostic engineering is a crucial area for the application of non destructive testing methods. Repeated tests over time can indicate the emergence of p- sible damage occurring during the structure's lifetime and provide quantitative estimates of the level of residual safety.

This book deals with fundamental problems, concepts, and methods of multiparameter stability theory with applications in mechanics. It presents recent achievements and knowledge of bifurcation theory, sensitivity analysis of stability characteristics, general aspects of nonconservative stability problems, analysis of singularities of boundaries for the stability domains, stability analysis of multiparameter linear periodic systems, and optimization of structures under stability constraints. Systems with finite degrees of freedom and with continuous models are both considered. The book combines mathematical foundation with interesting classical and modern mechanical problems.A number of mechanical problems illustrating how bifurcations and singularities change the behavior of systems and lead to new physical phenomena are discussed. Among these problems, the authors consider systems of rotating bodies, tubes conveying fluid, elastic columns under the action of periodic and follower forces, optimization problems for conservative systems, etc. The methods presented are constructive and easy to implement in computer programs.This book is addressed to graduate students, academics, researchers, and practitioners in aerospace, naval, civil, and mechanical engineering. No special background is needed; just a basic knowledge of mathematics and mechanics.

This collection of papers, written by friends and colleagues of Josef Singer, presents a comprehensive and timely review of the theoretical mechanics of thin shell-structures. Topics of great current interest such as the buckling of composite plates and shells, the plastic buckling of thin-walled structures and the optimum design of buckling sensitive curved composite panels are examined by experts, using a great diversity of approaches, whereby theoretical predictions are compared with experimental results whenever possible.Other topics reviewed include the buckling and post-buckling behaviour of imperfect shells under different external static or dynamic loads and a variety of boundary conditions. Papers dealing with the vibration and the dynamic response of thin elastic bodies are also presented.A strong emphasis is made on the practical applications aspect in the theories presented. Thus engineers, research workers and students who are involved with the design and analysis of shell structures made of different materials, and subjected to various static and dynamic loads will find this volume an invaluable source of reference.

This book treats stability problems of equilibrium states of elastic rods. Euler energy and dynamical methods of stability analysis are introduced and stability criteria for each method is developed. Stability analysis is accompanied by a number of classical conservative and non-conservative, two- and three-dimensional problems. Some problems are treated by all three methods. Many generalized versions of known problems are presented (heavy vertical rod, rotating rod, Greenhill's problem, Beck's column, Pflüger's rod, strongest column, etc.). The generalizations consist in using either a generalized form of constitutive equations or a more general form of loading, or both. Special attention is paid to the influence of shear stresses and axis compressibility on the value of the critical load. Variational methods are applied to obtain estimates of the critical load and maximal deflection in the post-critical state, in a selected number of examples.

This book is the consequence of research undertaken by the authors in the field of advanced problems of structural mechanics. Stability analysis of structures comes under this area because of the complex models and computational methods needed for analysis. In the mid seventies, a joint effort began between a group of researchers and teachers of the Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Center of the Cracow University of Technology. One of the important results of the collaboration has been this publication.