Statics of Deformable Solids

Rating:
Summary: Not a traditional mechanics of materials book
Review: This is not a traditional mechanics of materials book. If you are looking for one, you should probably stick with Beer and Johnson or maybe Den Hartog. This book leaves much to be desired as preparation for practical engineering work (I'm writing as someone who has done stress analysis professionally for the last twenty years), because it leaves out many essential concepts, e.g. shear center, and it takes a mathematical approach instead of the more traditional physical approach.

The book does have some big pluses though. As preparation for theory of elasticity this book is definitely superior. That said, the reason I've given this book four stars is its treatment of moment equilibrium in section 3.4. It is the only time I can recall seeing a proof that the sum of the moments on a static body equals zero without resorting to dynamics and angular momentum: given that all particles in a body are in static force equilibrium and using the definition of moment, the authors show that the sum of the externally applied moments must be zero. Most people, however, wouldn't appreciate this proof but would, instead, just accept the result axiomatically.