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Rating: 
Summary: Concise summary of zillions of theoretical concepts
Review: Every FE analyst NEEDS to know the content in this book, because as the author points out, FE modeling is much more than mere meshing and pre-preprocessing. It's nothing fancy, just a numerical method for the solution and the rest of the process, knowing the problem theoretically and conceptually is much more important than pretty pictures. A MUST HAVE for every FE analyst.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but Needs More Development
Review: Let me start out by saying that an excellent starter book on FEA has yet to be written. It's a frustrating situation, but we'll have to live with it for now. Cook has the foundation for a really good book here. He does a decent job of explaining element formulations and their limitations without bringing on endless pages of variational calculus that we're all sick of seeing in FEA books. But the book needs more development. What engineers want is a book that will give the BASIC mathematical foundations, and then get on with showing how to DO finite element analysis. That was the attempt of Adams and Askenazi's book, "Building Better Products with Finite Element Analysis", but unfortunately it came across as overly-simplified and lacking in specifics (too much fluff, and not enough meat). In contrast, Cook zeros in on the core material without wasting words. Problem is, the material comes across in a cursory manner without the development it deserves. The author frequently broaches complex topics, and then gives insufficient discussion to clarify them. I'm sure he understands them, but the rest of us need a little more explanation, in layman's terms, with examples. In summary, the book needs more... more real world problems; more examples on how to avoid pitfalls in applying boundary conditions; more useful discussion on contact analysis; more quantitative information on how fine to make a mesh. Sure, we all know that hex elements are better than tets, but how much better? Roughly how many hex elements per 90 degrees of arc are required to get sufficient accuracy for hex-8s, tet-4s, and tet-10s? I realize there are no exact answers to these questions, but surely there are rules of thumb that practicing engineers use, because most practicing engineers don't have time to run 10 different mesh refinements and do a convergence analysis. I apologize if I sound like I'm venting, which I am, but if you don't find any of this helpful, just remember what you paid for it.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
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Rating:
Summary: Good, but Needs More Development
Review: This book is an absolutely fantastic guide to all aspects of structural finite element analysis, with short sections on thermal and other disciplines. It can be described as a book on how to REALLY use FEA - an appropriate level of theory is discussed, and then the author provides a very lucrative discussion of actually using FEA to model real-world systems. Pitfalls, how elements can or cannot actually model structures, and generally good FEA practise are discussed. If you want to know what you're doing using FEA and have an engineering background, you want this book.
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