This book originally appeared as a text prepared for the Defense Nuclear
Agency to summarize research on dynamic pulse buckling, by the authors
and their colleagues at SRI International, during the period from 1960
to 1980. The original printing of 300 copies by the DNA Press was
followed shortly by a small second printing to meet the demand by
readers who heard of the book from the primary recipients. This supply
was also quickly exhausted, to researchers and practicing engineers
outside the DNA community and to academics who wanted to include the
material in courses on elastic and plastic stability of structures.
Commercial publication by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers was therefore
undertaken to meet the needs of this broader community. The objective of
the book was to gather into a cohesive whole material that had been
published in reports and the open literature during the two decade
period. In the process of knitting this material together, a substantial
amount of new work was done. The book therefore contains many new
results never published in the open literature.