Continuum Mechanics [Paperback]

This concise textbook develops step by step the fundamental principles of continuum mechanics. Emphasis is on mathematical clarity, and an extended appendix provides the required background knowledge in linear algebra and tensor calculus. After introducing the basic notions about general kinematics, balance equations, material objectivity and constitutive functions, the book turns to the presentation of rational thermodynamics by stressing the role of Lagrange multipliers in deriving constitutive funcitions from the underlying entropy principle. A brief lecture on extended thermodynamics closes the book. Many examples and exercises round off the material presendted in the chapters. The book addresses primarily advanced undergraduate students in theoretical physics, applied mathematics and materials sciences.

In this book the basic principles of continuum mechanics and thermodynam? ics are treated in the tradition of the rational framework established in the 1960s, typically in the fundamental memoir The Non-Linear Field Theories of Mechanics by Truesdell and Noll. The theoretical aspect of constitutive theories for materials in general has been carefully developed in mathemati? cal clarity - from general kinematics, balance equations, material objectivity, and isotropic representations to the framework of rational thermodynamics based on the entropy principle. However, I make no claim that the subjects are covered completely, nor does this book cover solutions and examples that can usually be found in textbooks of fluid mechanics and linear elasticity. However, some of the interesting examples of finite deformations in elastic materials, such as biaxial stretching of an elastic membrane and inflation of a rubber balloon, are discussed. In the last two chapters of the book, some recent developments in ther? modynamic theories are considered. Specifically, they emphasize the use of Lagrange multipliers, which enables the exploitation of the entropyl£&