Mechanics of Aeronautical Solids, Materials and Structures introduces the fundamentals of the mechanics of materials to audiences interested in airframe structures. The book is aimed at presenting the key elements and concepts that any structural engineer needs to be aware off, the fundamentals of stress, strain and their constitutive relations; the experimental behaviour of materials along with the material properties and applicable failure theories; the methods and the design tools for analysing airframe structures. The book is mainly targeted for undergraduate aerospace engineering students.
The book opens with the definition and explanation of fundamental concepts such as stress, strain and their constitutive relation. The concepts are presented adequately, but they are hidden within complicated expressions thus the presentation necessitates from the readers to be already familiar with and have mastered the vector/tensor calculus as well as the basic differential calculus.
Throughout the text, discussion evolves mainly, but not solely, around homogenous material in an effort to focus more on the widely used metallic materials for airframe structures. The concepts of laminated composites – and the analysis of – are briefly touched upon which may have an adverse effect on the reader since a more extensive reference is required to properly comprehend the mechanics of composite materials. Similar to previously mentioned, energy methods and the application of to a discretised continuum giving rise to the finite element method is also briefly discussed and the readers are expected to be aware of the underlining concepts of the method. The last chapters present a number of very interesting and educative examples along with their solutions which put the previously outlined theory into context.
Overall, this textbook provides aerospace engineering undergraduates with a mathematical description on the fundamentals of the mechanics of materials. Apart from the fundamentals, the content is lean and on some occasions not to the expected level for understanding. The audience has to have some prior knowledge in few key elements and knowledge domain areas.
