Overview

The Purpose of this text is to present the details of a beam theory that is suitable for a wide variety of applications. While there are already books devoted to theories of plates and of shells, this book represents a rare attempt in the modern era to present a serious, in-depth treatment of beams. Beams are slender structural members and may be made out of virtually any material. As the earliest beam theories developed, they were strictly for application to beams made of isotropic materials and were limited to linear behavior (small deflections and linearly elastic material laws). Beam theory has historically found applications in civil engineering (e.g., building, highway, bridge construction), mechanical engineering (e.g., shafts, gas turbine rotor blades, engine components, wind turbine rotors, nuclear reactor components), and aerospace engineering (e.g., propellors, helicopter rotor blades, high-aspect-ratio aircraft wings, spacecraft parts). As it has been applied to more and more fields, it has become more and more sophisticated. In particular, the need for accurate tools for geometrically nonlinear analysis of initially curved and twisted composite beams has placed a very high demand on the requirements for beam theory and has consequently led to a large body of research. I believe that the time has come for presentation of a systematic approach in one place; this is the intended role for this book.

The theoretical foundations of this book have been inspired largely by research conducted to meet the need for accurate analysis of helicopter rotor blades made of composites,...