Material technology has become so diversified in theories and the
construction of novel microstructures that the researchers and
practitioners are drifting further apart. This book is based on material
presented at an International Symposium in Xanthi, Greece in July 1989.
The symposium attracted a group of individual engineers and scientists
from the East and West who tackled the question of why particular
manipulations of a given material have particular effects. Emphasis is
laid on the strain energy function because of the versatile role it
plays in mechanics and physics. It has been used successfully not only
in predicting the failure of solids but also in formulating constitutive
relations in continuum mechanics.
The material presented falls within the areas of: Fundamentals of Strain
Energy Density, Damage Analysis on Strain Energy Density, Strain Energy
Density as Failure Criterion, Applications, and Composites.