Strength of Materials: Practice eBook

Strength of materials or mechanics of materials is a fundamental course in civil, mechanical, aeronautical, and nuclear engineering which deals with the stress analysis of components of structural and mechanical systems subjected to different types of force and thermal loadings. This book is intended for sophomore and senior undergraduate engineering students, as well as junior practicing engineers. While this book is not a replacement for strength of materials textbooks, its main objective is to provide readers with real-world examples to become familiar with practical applications and projects and to develop in them the ability to analyze a given problem in a simple and logical manner.

This ebook also employs interactive features to transform 200+ traditionally-formatted pages into an innovative representation. This makes the study of the ebook more enjoyable by navigating through different windows and slides on the same page without the need to go to other pages. This is the distinctive groundbreaking attribute of this ebook, which has not yet been implemented in other engineering digital books, to the best of authors’ knowledge. 

The book contains four problems with four different real-world examples of structural or mechanical components. The first two problems pertain to the fundamental concepts in bending, shear, and torsion and steps required to obtain critical stress values in a component (a bicycle handlebar and a perimeter beam of an exterior brick wall in a building) subjected to external mechanical loads. Problem 3 solves a statically indeterminate shaft under torsional loading. Being the first of its kind in strength of materials, this problem obtains support reactions of the shaft with various support conditions including fully and ‘partially bonded’ prismatic and non-prismatic supports. Finally, problem 4 presents a pre-stressed concrete column subjected to mechanical and thermal loadings. It analyzes the pre-stressing force of the column during fabrication and at service under external and thermal loadings. The problem then concludes with introducing the concept of kernel and eccentric loading for the column. 

All problems end with several review questions along with detailed answers in order to provide readers with a self-evaluating tool. Moreover, definitions and notions which are used in the book but are introduced in other courses than the strength of materials are provided in the Glossary section to make it as independent of other references or further readings as possible.