Manipulation using dextrous robot hands has been an exciting yet frustrating research topic for the last several years. While significant progress has occurred in the design, construction, and low level control of robotic hands, researchers are up against fundamental problems in developing algorithms for real-time computations in multi-sensory processing and motor control. The aim of this book is to explore parallels in sensorimotor integration in dextrous robot and human hands, addressing the basic question of how the next generation of dextrous hands should evolve. By bringing together experimental psychologists, kinesiologists, computer scientists, electrical engineers, and mechanical engineers, the book covers topics that range from human hand usage in prehension and exploration, to the design and use of robotic sensors and multi-fingered hands, and to control and computational architectures for dextrous hand usage. While the ultimate goal of capturing human hand versatility remains elusive, this book makes an important contribution to the design and control of future dextrous robot hands through a simple underlying message: a topic as complex as dextrous manipulation would best be addressed by collaborative, interdisciplinary research, combining high level and low level views, drawing parallels between human studies and analytic approaches, and integrating sensory data with motor commands. As seen in this text, success has been made through the establishment of such collaborative efforts. The future will hold up to expectations only as researchers become aware of advances in parallel fields and as a common vocabulary emerges from integrated perceptions about manipulation.

Essential Spaceflight Dynamics and Magnetospherics describes, in the first instance, some of the key aspects of celestial mechanics and spaceflight dynamics. It begins with classical two and three body problems illustrative of the aesthetic aspects of applying analytical methods of investigation to celestial mechanics. Then, osculating orbital elements are introduced as well as analysis techniques sufficient to evaluate the influence of various disturbing forces on spacecraft. Next a theory of manoeuvres is outlined and the methodology of making interplanetary trajectory corrections. Ideas involving various approaches to orbital element determinations using measured data are also considered. The forces applied to a spacecraft can result in the development of torques that influence attitude motion and the effects of the most important of these are described in terms of equilibrium positions, periodic motions, steady-state and transient motions. Also considered is the problem of attitude control of a spacecraft using active and/or passive methods of orientation and stabilization. In addition, a more advanced treatment of the development of attitude control systems is provided.

Introduction to Contact Mechanics, Second Edition is a gentle introduction to the mechanics of solid bodies in contact for graduate students, post doctoral individuals, and the beginning researcher.
This second edition maintains the introductory character of the first with a focus on materials science as distinct from straight solid mechanics theory. Every chapter has been updated to make the book easier to read and more informative. A new chapter on depth sensing indentation has been added, and the contents of the other chapters have been completely overhauled with added figures, formulae and explanations.

Hydronamics of Explosion presents the research results for the problems of underwater explosions and contains a detailed analysis of the structure and the parameters of the wave fields generated by explosions of cord and spiral charges, a description of the formation mechanisms for a wide range of cumulative flows at underwater explosions near the free surface, and the relevant mathematical models. Shock-wave transformation in bubbly liquids, shock-wave amplification due to collision and focusing, and the formation of bubble detonation waves in reactive bubbly liquids are studied in detail. Particular emphasis is placed on the investigation of wave processes in cavitating liquids, which incorporates the concepts of the strength of real liquids containing natural microinhomogeneities, the relaxation of tensile stress, and the cavitation fracture of a liquid as the inversion of its two-phase state under impulsive (explosive) loading. The problems are classed among essentially nonlinear processes that occur under shock loading of liquids and may be of interest to researchers in physical acoustics, mechanics of multiphase media, shock-wave processes in condensed media, explosive hydroacoustics, and cumulation.

Modern engineering materials subjected to unfavorable mechanical and environmental conditions decrease in strength due to the accumulation of microstructural changes. For example, considering damage in metals we can mention creep damage, ductile plastic damage, embrittlement of steels and fatigue damage. To properly estimate the value of damage when designing reliable structures it is necessary to formulate the damage phenomenon in terms of mechanics. Then it is possible to analyse various engineering problems using analytical and computational techniques. During the last two decades the basic principles of continuum damage mechanics were formulated and some special problems were solved. Many scientific papers were published and several conferences on damage mechanics took place. Now continuum damage mechanics is rapidly developing branch of fracture mechanics. This book is probably the first one on the subject; it contains a sys­ tematic description of the basic aspects of damage mechanics and some of its applications. In general, a theoretical description of damage can be rather compli­ cated. The experiments in this field are difficult (especially under multiax­ ial stress and non-proportional loading). Therefore, experimental data, as a rule, are scarce. Determination of functions and constants, which play a role in the complex variants of the theory, from available experimental data is often practically impossible. ix L.M. Kachanov The problems of damage mechanics are mainly engineering ones. Therefore, the author tries to avoid superfluous mathematical formalism. Some more details of the book's subject can be found in the list of con­ tents.

Why write another book on mechanics? There are, after all, a number of excellent texts that describe in great detail the way classical solids behave when acted upon by static and time-varying forces; many of these are cited in this monograph. These texts treat solids as continuous objects, and quantum mechanics does not enter the discussion. Furthermore, the atomic nature of the solid is implicit, but does not enter in a central role. At the other end of the spectrum, texts on condensed matter physics focus on the quantum mechanical nature of the solid; these contain quite clear descriptions of acou­ stic waves in solids, describing their dynamic and thermal properties, and how they interact with electrons in the solid, but contain little information regarding bulk deformations. This text, focussing on the mechanics of very small objects, attempts to provide a link between these two approaches; in addition to describing the theories of both the classical and the quantum mechanical solid, I attempt to outline where the classical description breaks down, and quantum mechanics must be applied, to understand the behavior of a nanoscale object. I have tried to merge the continuum description of the solid with the atomic one, and to show how and where quantum mechanics plays a role, especially as the size scale of the system is reduced, making the quantized energy scale larger and the role of thermal vibrations more important.

The present volume offers a state-of-the-art report on the various recent sci­ entific developments in the Theory of Porous Media (TPM) comprehending the basic theoretical concepts in continuum mechanics on porous and mul­ tiphasic materials as well as the wide range of experimental and numerical applications. Following this, the volume does not only address the sophisti­ cated reader but also the interested beginner in the area of Porous Media by presenting a collection of articles. These articles written by experts in the field concern the fundamental approaches to multiphasic and porous materials as well as various applications to engineering problems. In many branches of engineering just as in applied natural sciences like bio- and chemomechanics, one often has to deal with continuum mechanical problems which cannot be uniquely classified within the well-known disci­ plines of either "solid mechanics" or "fluid mechanics". These problems, characterized by the fact that they require a unified treatment of volumetri­ cally coupled solid-fluid aggregates; basically fall into the categories of either mixtures or porous media. Following this, there is a broad variety of problems ranging in this category as for example the investigation of reacting fluid mix­ tures or solid-fluid suspensions as well as the investigation of the coupled solid deformation and pore-fluid flow behaviour of liquid- and gas-saturated porous solid skeleton materials like geomaterials (soil, rock, concrete, etc. ), polymeric and metallic foams or biomaterials (hard and soft tissues, etc).

A systematic treatment, based on Green's functions and integral equations, is given to the analytical and numerical methods and results for a great number of 3-D contact problems for elastic bodies. Semi-bounded elastic bodies (layer, cylinder, space with cylindrical or spherical cavity, 3-D wedge, special cases of which are half- and quarter-spaces, cone) and finite elastic bodies (circular plate, finite cylinder, spherical layer, spherical lens, sphere) are considered. Methods introduced in the book can also be applied in fracture mechanics, hydrodynamics, electrostatics, thermodynamics and diffusion theory, continuum mechanics, and mathematical physics, as well as by engineers and students in mathematics, mechanics, and physics.

This book stems from a course on Micromechanics that I started about fifteen years ago at Northwestern University. At that time, micromechanics was a rather unfamiliar subject. Although I repeated the course every year, I was never convinced that my notes have quite developed into a final manuscript because new topics emerged constantly requiring revisions, and additions. I finally came to realize that if this is continued, then I will never complete the book to my total satisfaction. Meanwhile, T. Mori and I had coauthored a book in Japanese, entitled Micromechanics, published by Baifu-kan, Tokyo, in 1975. It received an extremely favorable response from students and re­ searchers in Japan. This encouraged me to go ahead and publish my course notes in their latest version, as this book, which contains further development of the subject and is more comprehensive than the one published in Japanese. Micromechanics encompasses mechanics related to microstructures of materials. The method employed is a continuum theory of elasticity yet its applications cover a broad area relating to the mechanical behavior of materi­ als: plasticity, fracture and fatigue, constitutive equations, composite materi­ als, polycrystals, etc. These subjects are treated in this book by means of a powerful and unified method which is called the 'eigenstrain method. ' In particular, problems relating to inclusions and dislocations are most effectively analyzed by this method, and therefore, special emphasis is placed on these topics.

Modern computational techniques, such as the Finite Element Method, have, since their development several decades ago, successfully exploited continuum theories for numerous applications in science and technology. Although standard continuum methods based upon the Cauchy-Boltzmann continuum are still of great importance and are widely used, it increasingly appears that material properties stemming from microstructural phenomena have to be considered. This is particularly true for inhomogeneous load and deformation states, where lower-scale size effects begin to affect the macroscopic material response; something standard continuum theories fail to account for. Following this idea, it is evident that standard continuum mechanics has to be augmented to capture lower-scale structural and compositional phenomena, and to make this information accessible to macroscopic numerical simulations.

The origin of this book lies in a time before one of the authors (J. O'M. B.) left the University of Pennsylvania bound for the Flinders University. His collaboration with Dennis Matthews at the University of Pennsylvania had contributed a singular experimental datum to the quantum theory of elec­ trode processes: the variation of the separation factor with potential, which could only be interpreted in terms of a quantum theory of electrode kinetics. The authors came together as a result of grad~ate work of one of them (S. U. M. K.) on the quantum mechanics and photo aspects of elec­ trode processes, and this book was written during a postdoctoral fellowship held by him at the Flinders University. Having stated the book's origin, it is worthwhile stating the rational­ izations the authors had for writing it. Historically, quantization in elec­ trochemistry began very early (1931) in the applications of the quantum theory to chemistry. (See the historical table on pages xviii-xix.) There was thereafter a cessation of work on the quantum theory in electrochemistry until a continuum dielectric viewpoint, based on Born's equation for solvation energy, began to be developed in the 1950s and snowballed during the 1960s.

Introduction to Linear Elasticity, 3rd Edition provides an applications-oriented grounding in the tensor-based theory of elasticity for students in mechanical, civil, aeronautical, biomedical engineering, as well as materials and earth science. The book is distinct from the traditional text aimed at graduate students in solid mechanics by introducing its subject at a level appropriate for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. The author's presentation allows students to apply the basic notions of stress analysis and move on to advanced work in continuum mechanics, plasticity, plate and shell theory, composite materials, and finite method analysis.

Continuum Mechanics of Anisotropic Materials(CMAM) presents an entirely new and unique development of material anisotropy in the context of an appropriate selection and organization of continuum mechanics topics. These features will distinguish this continuum mechanics book from other books on this subject. Textbooks on continuum mechanics are widely employed in engineering education, however, none of them deal specifically with anisotropy in materials. For the audience of Biomedical, Chemical and Civil Engineering students, these materials will be dealt with more frequently and greater accuracy in their analysis will be desired. Continuum Mechanics of Anisotropic Materials' author has been a leader in the field of developing new approaches for the understanding of anisotropic materials.

Fracture mechanics is a vast and growing field. This book develops the basic elements needed for both fracture research and engineering practice. The emphasis is on continuum mechanics models for energy flows and crack-tip stress- and deformation fields in elastic and elastic-plastic materials. In addition to a brief discussion of computational fracture methods, the text includes practical sections on fracture criteria, fracture toughness testing, and methods for measuring stress intensity factors and energy release rates. Class-tested at Cornell, this book is designed for students, researchers and practitioners interested in understanding and contributing to a diverse and vital field of knowledge.

This is a work in four parts, dealing with the mechanics and thermodynamics of materials with memory, including properties of the dynamical equations which describe their evolution in time under varying loads. The first part is an introduction to Continuum Mechanics with sections dealing with classical Fluid Mechanics and Elasticity, linear and non-linear. The second part is devoted to Continuum Thermodynamics, which is used to derive constitutive equations of materials with memory, including viscoelastic solids, fluids, heat conductors and some examples of non-simple materials. In part three, free energies for materials with linear memory constitutive relations are comprehensively explored. The new concept of a minimal state is also introduced. Formulae derived over the last decade for the minimum and related free energies are discussed in depth. Also, a new single integral free energy which is a functional of the minimal state is analyzed in detail. Finally, free energies for examples of non-simple materials are considered. In the final part, existence, uniqueness and stability results are presented for the integrodifferential equations describing the dynamical evolution of viscoelastic materials. A new approach to these topics, based on the use of minimal states rather than histories, is discussed in detail. There are also chapters on the controllability of thermoelastic systems with memory, the Saint-Venant problem for viscoelastic materials and on the theory of inverse problems.