This highly successful book shows how to create programs using the finite element method to solve specific problems. The new second edition covers broader ground than the first and the authors deal with geomechanics in much less detail giving a more general approach to the subject. To give students a thorough grounding in the development of finite element programs, topics have been added to most chapters and additional computer programs and examples have been included. There is additional material on fluid flow and on a wide range of elastic, elasto-plastic and stability analyses; the sections on steady state and transient flow have been extended to make whole chapters; there is more detail on coupled problems; eigenvalue analysis has a chapter to itself; and additional methods are given for the solution of differential equations.