Product Description
Starting from governing differential equations, a unique and consistently weighted residual approach is used to present advanced topics in finite element analysis of structures, such as mixed and hybrid formulations, material and geometric nonlinearities, and contact problems. This book features a hands-on approach to understanding advanced concepts of the finite element method (FEM) through integrated Mathematica and MATLAB® exercises. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Advanced Topics In finite element analysis
This book wasn't helpful only because the instructor selected it instead of the required fundamental Topics in Finite Element Analysis of Structures. ... Read more

Product Description

The authors present a modern continuum mechanics and mathematical framework to study shell physical behaviors, and to formulate and evaluate finite element procedures. With a view towards the synergy that results from physical and mathematical understanding, the book focuses on the fundamentals of shell theories, their mathematical bases and finite element discretizations. The complexity of the physical behaviors of shells is analysed, and the difficulties to obtain uniformly optimal finite element procedures are identified and studied. Some modern finite element methods are presented for linear and nonlinear analyses. A state of the art monograph by leading experts.

Customer Reviews (11)

A thought-provoking treatise
It is an understatement to call this book excellent! Development of robust and reliable computational techniques for shell analysis continues to be a most challenging task. The level of profundity offered by this book on this traditional topic is truly astounding. Mathematical analysis has been wonderfully intertwined with engineering judgement. The presentation is brief and compact with an emphasis on mathematical rigor.

finite element analysis of shells in depth
This is the first (and only) book I have come across which gives a deep and comprehensive analysis of finite element methods for shell structures.The authors take a mathematical approach to the problem, and do a very nice job.Traditionally, finite element procedures for shells have been formulated intuitively hence resulting in mixed success.Mathematical analyses of finite element formulations give a deeper and meaningful insight into the underlying mathematical theory and the reasons why some formulations perform much better than others.This deeper mathematical understanding in turn gives better insight into the physical behaviour of shells as limiting cases are approached (i.e thin shells etc.).Research in finite element analysis, including shells, is very much alive and still has a lot of potential.This book is very valuable for people who want to dig further into mathematical aspects of finite element formulations, and are not just content with "coding" an existing formulation.This is not a "recipe" book, but a book which teaches you how to come up with new, mathematically consistent and meaningful formulations.

Useless for most people
The book is probably good for researchers.It is however not suitable for beginners or practitioners.

An important reference for shell structure mechanics
This book clearly explains shell structure mechanics from a mathematical and practical perspective. As a practicing engineer and finite element user, I found it extremely useful and easy to understand. This is also an invaluable reference for graduate students in applied mechanics. I think it will be a classic reference in that field.

An excellent book on Shells
This is an excellent book for anybody interested in the analysis of shells. It uniquely presents the physical and mathematical aspects of shell behavior, and their finite element analysis. I believe this book is a MUST for researchers and practioners. ... Read more

Product Description
The first complete guide to using the Stochastic Finite Element Method for reliability assessment

Unlike other analytical reliability estimation techniques, the Stochastic Finite Element Method (SFEM) can be used for both implicit and explicit performance functions, making it a particularly powerful and robust tool for today's engineer. This book, written by two pioneers in SFEM-based methodologies, shows how to use SFEM for the reliability analysis of a wide range of structures.

It begins by reviewing essential risk concepts, currently available risk evaluation procedures, and the use of analytical and sampling methods in estimating risk. Next, it introduces SFEM evaluation procedures, with detailed coverage of displacement-based and stress-based deterministic finite element approaches. Linear, nonlinear, static, and dynamic problems are considered separately to demonstrate the robustness of the methods. The risk or reliability estimation procedure for each case is presented in different chapters, with theory complemented by a useful series of examples.

Integrating advanced concepts in risk-based design, finite elements, and mechanics, Reliability Assessment Using Stochastic Finite Element Analysis is vital reading for engineering professionals and students in all areas of the field. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Classic in Probabilistic Design
If there are two textbooks in probabilistic design that are really worth buying, I would reccomend this one and its companion volume "Probability, Reliability and Statistical Methods in Engineering Design" by the same authors. What makes these books so useful is the clear and effective writing style of the authors - which is why its a favorite amongst undergrads, grads and reliability engineers in Industry. A very useful primer in any company implementing a "Design for Reliability" program as a part of their Six Sigma efforts. ... Read more

Product Description
An up-to-date, one-stop reference–complete with applications

This volume presents the most up-to-date information available on a posteriori error estimation for finite element approximation in mechanics and mathematics. It emphasizes methods for elliptic boundary value problems and includes applications to incompressible flow and nonlinear problems.

Recent years have seen an explosion in the study of a posteriori error estimators due to their remarkable influence on improving both accuracy and reliability in scientific computing. In an effort to provide an accessible source, the authors have sought to present key ideas and common principles on a sound mathematical footing.

Topics covered in this timely reference include:

• Implicit and explicit a posteriori error estimators
• Recovery-based error estimators
• Estimators, indicators, and hierarchic bases
• The equilibrated residual method
• Methodology for the comparison of estimators
• Estimation of errors in quantities of interest
  

A Posteriori Error Estimation in Finite Element Analysis is a lucid and convenient resource for researchers in almost any field of finite element methods, and for applied mathematicians and engineers who have an interest in error estimation and/or finite elements. ... Read more

Product Description
Have you ever solved a partial differential equation ?

The laws of physics may be transformed mathematically into second-order partial differential equations (PDEs). The simplest one of this type is known as the Laplace equation. This governs the distribution of gravitation in free space. Other PDEs, for the electric and magnetic fields etc., are somewhat similar but more complicated.

Few of these equations have exact solutions, which explains why they do not receive the attention they deserve in the academic curriculum. Only in recent years has it become possible to solve PDEs numerically on an ordinary PC by finite element analysis (FEA).

The present book is unique in its approach. It is not another volume on conceivable algorithms of FEA. Its main purpose is to exploit a free web program (the Student version of FlexPDE) for dealing with PDEs occurring in physics. This program solves a typical example in seconds and promptly presents the results graphically by a variety of plots.

The main topics treated are the following.

Plotting Functions, Laplace and Poisson PDEs, Electricity, Magnetism, Heat, Problems in 3D Space, Electromagnetic Waves, Wave Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics. More information is available on the author's web site.

A reviewer complained that the plots shown in the book are of poor quality. In fact, they are in black-and-white, intended to give an idea of what to expect on running the example by FlexPDE. The actual plots produced by the software are in color and are easy to read. The best way of learning to use FlexPDE is to type scripts, run them and find out what each line means. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

If you do or will use FlexPDE you should certainly buy this.
Hope it's OK that I'm basing this on an earlier edition of the book...

I think you pretty much can count on being glad you bought this book, if you use FlexPDE or if you're going to try it. For one thing, the discussion complements all of the documentation available with the software, and if you are going to do something as inherently detailed as applying the finite element method, you should want to be able to read two different sources, to take advantage of both perspectives. For another thing, there are plenty of good examples to use as a starting point, to modify (or even combine) to suit your specific problems.

FlexPDE itself is an amazingly clean and versatile software package. I haven't found any other similarly useful entrance into the FEM field. This thing can get you pretty far, and it seems like the only tools that go further only do so in certain specialized niches, at much greater cost and with much greater difficulty. That there is a student version that can do a useful fraction of these kinds of things is even more amazing.

If you are not using or interested in FlexPDE, this book would at most be of passing interest. But if you are, for this kind of price, you kind of have to spring for it.

In my older edition, the print quality is nothing special, there is no color, and the graphs are not pretty the way they would be in Scientific American. I use the full blown "professional" version of FlexPDE and get beautiful color graphs at high resolution, and the book does not duplicate this, as the author notes. But I have never had a hard time reading any of the text or graphs, and a few of us have passed this (and others like Backstrom's similar book on fluid dynamics) around for years without the binding cracking or any pages falling out. It's not a coffee table book, anyway.

I would like to see FlexPDE catch on with even more people, and find several of my favorite authors writing texts on it to choose from, but until then, this is certainly a good choice.

Poor quality of the printing.
The printing quality is very lousy. Some of the figures in this book can't even be seen properly.
The printing seem to be from poor quality photocopying machine with not enough ink.

Essential Accompaniment to FlexPDE
Prof. Backstrom supplies 132 useful applications of the free Student Version of the excellent finite element analysis program FlexPDE.He covers the followingtopics:liquid, rotating as a disk; earth and moon as point masses, or planets of finite size, in a gravitational field; two positive point charges or a positive and negative point charge ; electric dipoles ; field around charged wires ; dipole of charged wires ; metal rod in a metal box; metal bar in a tube; metal rod across a parallel field; conduction in a rectangular plate or a trapezoidal plate; radial conduction in a foil; plate made of two different metals; coaxial cable; parallel plate capacitor; surface charge of polarization; magnetic field around a wire; field around two wires; permanent magnet; two hot-water tubes; uniformly heated, semi-circular rod; cooling by forced convection; conduction in anisotropic wood; temperature-dependent conductivity; steel foil emitting infrared radiation; iron bar with a temperature step; iron bard soldered to a copper bar; internally-heated steel bar with a loss; oscillating temperature in a steel block; sinusoidal volume heating of a steel foil; coin in a metal box; electrical conduction in a cone; glass block in a parallel electric field; plane wave in a conducting material; plane-wave in two different media; magnetic wave field; loss-free rectangular cavity; cavity of circular cross-section; Schrodinger wave equation; particle transmission, particle scattering, and bound particle; harmonic oscillator in one and two dimensions; flow through a constricted channel; cylindrical obstacle across a straight channel; obstacle close to wall; drag and lift on an inclined plate; viscous flow in channel at both low and high Reynolds number, constricted or not; channel with lateral cavity; uniform velocity of injection; viscous flow past a circular cylinder; drag and lift on an inclined plate; simple percolation in (x, y) space; percolation in (x, y) by Navier-Stokes PDE; and viscous flow in three dimensions.So, you can see that Prof. Backstrom covers many of the classic field problems of electricity, magnetism, heat, electromagnetic waves, and fluid dynamics.

There is very little here to complain about.Perhaps the displayed graphs should be heavier and thus be more legible.The scripts, as given, have to be typed in for each problem; however, after I requested that they be provided as text files to the FlexPDE Forum, Prof. Backstrom complied, saving all of us in industry much typing time.One other point:the program can plot field flux lines and potential lines in one orthogonal net, however, only the values of one or the other variable are tabulated, not both.I've requested that the developers fix this so that the numerical values of both flux and potential can appear on one graph, rather than on separate graphs.

Disappointed
Software associated with book is great, but book has poor printing, and "scripts" not associated with book were unavailable. I would not recommend getting this book this way, as there was no help from author when contacted. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a report of a cognitive journey towards the reliable simulation of scattering problems using finite element methods. The pre-asymptotic analysis of Galerkin FEM for the Helmholtz equation with moderate and large wave number forms the core of the book. The topics include a priori and a posteriori error estimation as well as the stabilized methods. The mathematical investigation of model problems is given in close connection with the physical problem of acoustic scattering and fluid-solid interaction. Starting from the basic physical assumptions, the author methodically develops both the strong and weak forms of the governing equations. The main chapter on finite element analysis is preceded by a systematic treatment of Galerkin methods for indefinite sesquilinear forms. The book also contains broad reference material on numerical methods for the Helmholtz equation in unbounded domains, including Dirichlet-to-Neumann methods, absorbing boundary conditio!ns, infinite elements and the perfectly matched layer. In the final chapter, three dimensional computational simulations are presented and compared with experimental data. Students and researchers in mathematics, physics and engineering, as well as scientists and computational engineers working on scattering problems will find this book of interest. The author has produced a self-contained and easily readable work containing numerous illustrations of the theory with numerical examples and computational results. ... Read more

Product Description
Presents an introduction to finite element analysis, two dimensional pin jointes truss, introduction to elasticity, and storage schemes and solution to large system. ... Read more

Product Description
This key text is written for senior undergraduate and graduate engineering students. It delivers a complete introduction to finite element methods and to automatic adaptation (error estimation) that will enable students to understand and use FEA as a true engineering tool. It has been specifically developed to be accessible to non-mathematics students and provides the only complete text for FEA with error estimators for non-mathematicians. Error estimation is taught on nearly half of all FEM courses for engineers at senior undergraduate and postgraduate level; no other existing textbook for this market covers this topic.

* The only introductory FEA text with error estimation for students of engineering, scientific computing and applied mathematics
* Includes source code for creating and proving FEA error estimators
* Complete with homework exercises and supporting website with instructor's solutions manual ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Helpful but not great
Ok, I have to get the elephant in the living room out of the way first. This text appears to be lecture notes printed verbatim, typos, ASCII art, MATLAB graphs, and Microsoft Word typesetting and all, and put into a paperback book. At first glance, when you open the book it isn't very impressive. Akin uses some non-standard notation (based on what I've seen in other textbooks and literature), which to me made it like reading ye olde English...it can be interpreted, but just not as quickly as I'm used to.

That aside, I found the book helpful. I studied it on my own to learn about adaptive finite elements. After and undergradute class, which barely brushes on the topic, and after a graduate class (I am in the early stages of my graduate studies), which took the "rigorous mathematical" stance and made the topic so damn esoteric and impossible to understand, I found Akin's treatment to be "just right," to quote Goldilocks. I have a much better understanding of both the theory and implementation of error-estimating in FEA.

Akin has a few other interesting chapters...he has a much better treatment on element interpolation that every other textbook I've seen. The examples are complicated enough to be in a FEA textbook but nowhere near useful. The structure of the book is a little confusing, and the chapters are unevenly balanced. In Akin's favor, the book isn't a collection of his papers, like most of the leaders in the field, and it is specifically written with seniors/early grad students in mind.

The book is interspersed with FORTAN snippets. The code is well-written (from an educational point of view, but kind of slow and sloppy otherwise), and well-commented. I'm of the opinion that FORTRAN needs to be put to bed, but old engineers won't ever let that happen. I think it would have been better to have code snippets in pseudocode...and by god, put the entire thing in an appendix and highlight important sections via notes in the margin. This isn't a programming book, but at times it seems that the entire focus is on Akin's FORTRAN code. If you're that worried about implementation, get the Cook/Malkus Concepts and Applications of Finite Element Analysis, 4th Edition text. Akin himself references it many times.

So, I think this is one to buy as a supplement to your class textbook. I have yet to come across a decent introductory FEA textbook (I know Reddy An Introduction to the Finite Element Method (Mcgraw Hill Series in Mechanical Engineering) has a lot of fans, but I don't agree with them). However, if you take bits and pieces from several books (this one included), you can get clear answers to any question. ... Read more

Product Description
A follow on from the author's work "Finite Elements in Heat Transfer" which we published 11/94, and which is a powerful CFD programme that will run on a PC. The fluid flow market is larger than the previous, and this package is good value in comparison with other software packages in Computational Fluid Dynamics, which are generally very expensive. The work in general copes with non-Newtonian laminar flow using the finite element method, and some basic theory of the subject is included in the opening chapters of the book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Never ever buy this junk.
I mistakenly bought this book, and now I will regret for the rest of my life for the price I paid. The authors used a double line spaceing, 13 pt font to fill up the whole book with space and large font. The problem illusrated are all well known problem CFD problem, like potential flow. ... Read more

Product Description
A review of available experimental data on the behaviour of concrete at both the material and structural levels reveals the unavoidable development of triaxial stress conditions prior to failure which dictate the collapse and ductility of structural concrete members; moreover - and in contrast with widely-accepted tenets - it can be shown that the post peak-stress behaviour of concrete as a material is realistically described by a complete and immediate loss of load-carrying capacity. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a foray into the computer analysis ofthree-dimensional composite structures using the finite element method(FEM).The text advances from the analysis of simple beams to arbitraryanisotropic and composite plates and shells; it treats both linear andnonlinear behaviour. Once the basic philosophy of the method isunderstood, the reader may expand its application and modify thecomputer programs to suit particular needs. It is shown how this leadsto considerable savings in computer time. Chapter 1 provides resultsfrom continuum mechanics and forms the Principles of Virtual Work andPotential Energy. Chapter 2 sketches the history of the FEM. Chapter 3introduces the concepts of natural modes and natural stiffness.Chapter 4 introduces the basic concepts of the theory of composites.Chapter 5 applies the natural mode method to the analysis of compositebeams in three dimensions. Chapter 6 introduces the composite plateand shell element. Chapter 7 shows the computational advantages of themethod on a model problem. Chapter 8 deals with nonlinear analysis ofanisotropic shells. Chapter 9 discusses programming aspects.
The volume is designed for advanced undergraduates, graduates,researchers, and practising engineers in the industry. The book isaccompanied by a floppy disc containing the relevant software. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The book is attractive
I think this book is a very good book as it seems from the title. I hope that I will be able to read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Tremendous computing power is now available for relatively low cost. Desktop and notebook computers commonly have multiple processors, and even homes have networks of computers. This offers great potential for taking advantage of distributed computing, but in order to realise this potential suitable program design methodologies are required. The .NET framework makes it relatively easy to implement distributed computing along with multi-threading. This book describes the implementation of a finite element program using .NET and object-oriented programming in C#. The book describes both overall program design approaches, along with program details. The book describes domain decomposition solution methods, covering both direct and iterative solvers, and their incorporation into a finite element program. The book is intended for researchers and postgraduate students working in the field of numerical software. The source code described in this book is available from the author's web site. ... Read more

Product Description
This book describes the advantages of object oriented programming for finite element software development. It explains the overall design philosophy and provides the reader with detailed programming information. The OO approach to finite element programming requires a radically different approach from that used for traditional finite element programming. It highlights the differences and demonstrates the advantages of the OO approach. Sufficient detailed programming information is included in this book to help readers to implement their own OO code or adapt the ideas presented in it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Look Elsewhere
I did not have the choice to rate this with zero stars or else I would have.This book is "hardwired" for C/C++ language, is awash with C++ templates (which are not inherently "bad", but the author manages to almost entirely obfuscate their use), contains no high level implementation strategies (best done by a programming language agnostic perspective), does not develop any kind of useful algorithms, and does not go into nearly enough detail of the (scant) topics it does cover.

I immediately returned this book but it was lost in the mail, so I still "own" it. ... Read more

Product Description
Webster's bibliographic and event-based timelines are comprehensive in scope, covering virtually all topics, geographic locations and people. They do so from a linguistic point of view, and in the case of this book, the focus is on "Finite Element Analysis," including when used in literature (e.g. all authors that might have Finite Element Analysis in their name). As such, this book represents the largest compilation of timeline events associated with Finite Element Analysis when it is used in proper noun form. Webster's timelines cover bibliographic citations, patented inventions, as well as non-conventional and alternative meanings which capture ambiguities in usage. These furthermore cover all parts of speech (possessive, institutional usage, geographic usage) and contexts, including pop culture, the arts, social sciences (linguistics, history, geography, economics, sociology, political science), business, computer science, literature, law, medicine, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and other physical sciences. This "data dump" results in a comprehensive set of entries for a bibliographic and/or event-based timeline on the proper name Finite Element Analysis, since editorial decisions to include or exclude events is purely a linguistic process. The resulting entries are used under license or with permission, used under "fair use" conditions, used in agreement with the original authors, or are in the public domain. ... Read more

Product Description
Composite materials are increasingly used in aerospace,underwater, and automotive structures. To take advantage of the fullpotential of composite materials, structural analysts and designersmust have accurate mathematical models and design methods at theirdisposal.
The objective of this monograph is to present the laminated platetheories and their finite element models to study the deformation,strength and failure of composite structures. Emphasis is placed onengineering aspects, such as the analytical descriptions, effectiveanalysis tools, modeling of physical features, and evaluation ofapproaches used to formulate and predict the response of compositestructures.
The first chapter presents an overview of the text. Chapter 2 isdevoted to the introduction of the definitions and terminology used incomposite materials and structures. Anisotropic constitutive relationsand Iaminate plate theories are also reviewed. Finite element modelsof laminated composite plates are presented in Chapter 3. Numericalevaluation of element coefficient matrices, post-computation ofstrains and stresses, and sample examples of laminated plates inbending and vibration are discussed. Chapter 4 introduces damage andfailure criteria in composite laminates. Finally, Chapter 5 isdedicated to case studies involving various aspects and types ofcomposite structures. Joints, cutouts, woven composites, environmentaleffects, postbuckling response and failure of composite laminates arediscussed by considering specific examples.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Book
I think that, this book is a very nice book. ... Read more

Product Description
This text treats the fundamental principles of the method in a simple, logical manner, placing the emphasis on the practical applications of the method in those areas where it is most commonly used, and so enabling the student to develop a sound understanding of the subject.Using simple, understandable mathematics, backed up by practical modelling details and worked examples, the author explains the theory and then introduces the reader to the more advanced applications and facilities offered by commercial finite packages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very clear and well written
I own several books on the subject but no one is clear as this one. I recommend this book to anybody interested in Finite Element Method.

MODERN
HELLO,THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE WHO FEEL LOST IN COMMERCIAL FEA-SOFTWARE TUTORIALS. ... Read more

Product Description
This new text, intended for the senior undergraduate finite element course in civil or mechanical engineering departments, gives students a solid basis in the mechanical principles of the finite element method and provides a theoretical foundation for applying available software analysis packages and evaluating the results obtained. Hutton discusses basic theory of the finite element method while avoiding variational calculus, instead focusing upon the engineering mechanics and mathematical background that may be expected of a senior undergraduate engineering student. The text relies upon basic equilibrium principles, introduction of the principle of minimum potential energy, and the Galerkin finite element method, which readily allows application of the FEM to nonstructural problems. The text is software-independent, making it flexible enough for use in a wide variety of programs, and offers a good selection of homework problems and examples. ... Read more