Saouma V.E. Introduction to Mechanics of Materials: Fundamentals of Inelastic Analysis

Lecture Notes. Draft, University of Colorado, 2002. 282 p. OCR.One of the most fundamental question that an Engineer has to ask him/herself is what is how does it deform, and when does it break. Ultimately, it its the answer to those two questions which would provide us with not only a proper safety assessment of a structure, but also how to properly design it.Ironically, botht he ACI and the AISC codes are based on limit state design, yet practically all design analyses are linear and elastic. On the other hand, the Engineer is often confronted with the task of determining the ultimate load carying capacity of a structure or to assess its progressive degradation (in the ontect of a forensic study, or the rehabilitation, or life extension of an existing structure). In those particular situations, the Engineer should be capable of going beyond the simple linear elastic analysis Investigation.
Whenever necessary, Mathematical preliminaries are introduced to make sure that the student is equipped with the appropriate tools. Illustrative problems are introduced whenever possible, and last but not least problem set using Mathematica is given in the Appendix.
The course was originally offered to second year undergraduate Materials Science students at the Swiss Institute of Technology during the author’s sabbatical leave in French.