Mechanical engineering, an engineering discipline born of the needs of the industrial revolution, is once again asked to do its substantial share in the call for industrial renewal. The general call is urgent as we face profound issues of productivity and competitiveness that require engineering solu tions, among others. The Mechanical Engineering Series is a new series, featuring graduate texts and research monographs, intended to address the need for information in contemporary areas of mechanical engineering. The series is conceived as a comprehensive one that will cover a broad range of concentrations important to mechanical engineering graduate edu cation and research. We are fortunate to have a distinguished roster of consulting editors, each an expert in one of the areas of concentration. The names of the consulting editors are listed on the first page of the volume. The areas of concentration are applied mechanics, biomechanics, computa tional mechanics, dynamic systems and control, energetics, mechanics of materials, processing, thermal science, and tribology. Professor Marshek, the consulting editor for dynamic systems and con trol, and I are pleased to present this volume of the series: Underconstrained Structural Systems by Professor Kuznetsov. The selection of this volume underscores again the interest of the Mechanical Engineering Series to pro vide our readers with topical monographs as well as graduate texts.

Klappentext

This book is intended for the academic and technical community involved in research, development, design and manufacturing of modern lightweight, rapidly deployable structural systems for both terrestrial and space applications. It can serve as a graduate text for students specializing in structural, mechanical, aeronautical and shape control engineering, as well as in engineering science and mechanics. Underconstrained systems represent a rich and useful, yet often misunderstood class of structural systems. This book is the first treatise on the subject. It contains a concise and comprehensive theory of underconstrained systems with applications to their design, analysis and synthesis. The theory, a combination of advanced analytical statics and nonlinear structural mechanics, is developed in Part I (Chapters 1-4). Part II (Chapters 5-10) provides applications to particular types of systems. Most of the presented results and applications are new. They include: extended statical-kinematic duality, linking infinitesimal mobility and stability of self-stress; orthogonal load decomposition and the statical-kinematic stiffness matrix; a statical-geometric theory and analysis of nets; a resolution of an old paradox in the statics of toroidal membranes; theory and analysis of wrinkling membranes; numerous closed-form solutions; and some new mechanical analogies.

Inhalt
I Fundamentals.- 1 Statical-Kinematic Analysis.- 2 Systems with Infinitesimal Mobility.- 3 Systems Involving Unilateral Constraints.- 4 Kinematic and Elastic Mobility.- II Applications to Particular Systems.- 5 Cables and Cable Systems.- 6 Nets.- 7 Axisymmetric Nets.- 8 Membranes.- 9 Other Underconstrained Systems and Contact Problems.- 10 Related Applications.- References.