At the present time stability theory of deformable systems has been
developed into a manifold field within solid mechanics with methods,
techniques and approaches of its own. We can hardly name a branch of
industry or civil engineering where the results of the stability theory
have not found their application. This extensive development together
with engineering applications are reflected in a flurry of papers
appearing in periodicals as well as in a plenty of monographs, textbooks
and reference books. In so doing, overwhelming majority of researchers,
con- cerned with the problems of practical interest, have dealt with the
loss of stability in the thin-walled structural elements. Trying to
simplify solution of the problems, they have used two- and
one-dimensional theories based on various auxiliary hypotheses. This
activity contributed a lot to the preferential development of the
stability theory of thin-walled structures and organisation of this
theory into a branch of solid mechanics with its own up-to-date methods
and trends, but left three-dimensional linearised theory of deformable
bodies stability (TL TDBS), methods of solving and solutions of the
three-dimensional stability problems themselves almost without
attention. It must be emphasised that by three- dimensional theories and
problems in this book are meant those theories and problems which do not
draw two-dimensional plate and shell and one-dimensional rod theories.