Students of engineering usually receive only fragmentary instruction in the
important principles of classical mechanics, stemming from the works of
Huygens, Leibniz, Bernoulli, and Lagrange, which assign a central role to
the concepts of work, potential energy, and kinetic energy. These laws,
designated as "energy principles of mechanics," are sufficiently general to
allow Newton's second law to be deduced from them. An integrated and
modern treatment of energy principles of mechanics, with applications to
dynamics of rigid bodies, analyses of elastic frames, general elasticity
theory, the theories of plates and shells, the theory of buckling, and the
theory of vibrations, is undertaken in this work.
The book has been planned for a two-semester course in advanced
mechanics for graduate students. In addition, it may be used for inde-
independent study and for reference purposes. A_ sound course in advanced
calculus, the rudiments of Gibb's vector theory, some knowledge of
advanced strength of materials, and the fundamentals of elasticity, theory
are prerequisites. The student who has mastered these subjects will not
find the mathematics too difficult. There are many abstractions, however,
that must be digested slowly. The instructor should use many simple
illustrations. Chapter 1, which serves as the groundwork for what follows,
need not be comprehended fully at the first reading; the student should
refer back to that chapter frequently.