The book offers a unified view on classical results and recent advances in the dynamics of nonconservative systems. The theoretical fundamentals are presented systematically and include: Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism, non-holonomic constraints, Lyapunov stability theory, Krein theory of spectra of Hamiltonian systems and modes of negative and positive energy, anomalous Doppler effect, reversible systems, sensitivity analysis of non-self-adjoint operators, dissipation-induced instabilities, local and global instabilities. They are applied to engineering situations such as the coupled mode flutter of wings, flags and pipes, flutter in granular materials, piezoelectric mechanical metamaterials, wave dynamics of infinitely long structures, radiative damping, stability of high-speed trains, experimental realization of follower forces, soft-robot locomotion, wave energy converters, friction-induced instabilities, brake squeal, non-holonomic sailing, dynamics of moving continua, and stability of bicycles and walking robots. The book responds to a demand in the modern theory of nonconservative systems coming from the growing number of scientific and engineering disciplines including physics, fluid and solids mechanics, fluid-structure interactions, and modern multidisciplinary research areas such as biomechanics, micro- and nanomechanics, optomechanics, robotics, and material science. It is targeted at both young and experienced researchers and engineers working in fields associated with the dynamics of structures and materials. The book will help to get a comprehensive and systematic knowledge on the stability, bifurcations and dynamics of nonconservative systems and establish links between approaches and methods developed in different areas of mechanics and physics and modern applied mathematics.

This updated revision gives a complete and topical overview on Nonconservative Stability which is essential for many areas of science and technology ranging from particles trapping in optical tweezers and dynamics of subcellular structures to dissipative and radiative instabilities in fluid mechanics, astrophysics and celestial mechanics. The author presents relevant mathematical concepts as well as rigorous stability results and numerous classical and contemporary examples from non-conservative mechanics and non-Hermitian physics. New coverage of ponderomotive magnetism, experimental detection of Ziegler’s destabilization phenomenon and theory of double-diffusive instabilities in magnetohydrodynamics.

This book - comprised of three separate volumes - presents the recent developments and research discoveries in structural and solid mechanics; it is dedicated to Professor Isaac Elishakoff. This first volume is devoted to the statics and stability of solid and structural members. Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 1 has broad scope, covering topics such as: buckling of discrete systems (elastic chains, lattices with short and long range interactions, and discrete arches), buckling of continuous structural elements including beams, arches and plates, static investigation of composite plates, exact solutions of plate problems, elastic and inelastic buckling, dynamic buckling under impulsive loading, buckling and post-buckling investigations, buckling of conservative and non-conservative systems and buckling of micro and macro-systems. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers in the field of theoretical and applied mechanics.

This book overcomes the separation existing in literature between the static and the dynamic bifurcation worlds. It brings together buckling and post-buckling problems with nonlinear dynamics, the bridge being represented by the perturbation method, i.e., a mathematical tool that allows for solving static and dynamic problems virtually in the same way. The book is organized as follows: Chapter one gives an overview; Chapter two illustrates phenomenological aspect of static and dynamic bifurcations; Chapter three deals with linear stability analysis of dynamical systems; Chapter four and five discuss the general theory and present examples of buckling and post-buckling of elastic structures; Chapter six describes a linearized approach to buckling, usually adopted in the technical literature, in which pre-critical deformations are neglected; Chapters seven to ten, analyze elastic and elasto-plastic buckling of planar systems of beams, thin-walled beams and plate assemblies, respectively; Chapters eleven to thirteen, illustrate dynamic instability phenomena, such as flutter induced by follower forces, aeroelastic bifurcations caused by wind flow, and parametric excitation triggered by pulsating loads. Finally, Chapter fourteen discusses a large gallery of solved problems, concerning topics covered in the book. An Appendix presents the Vlasov theory of open thin-walled beams. The book is devoted to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as engineers and practitioners. The methods illustrated here are immediately applicable to model real problems. The Book Introduces, in a simple way, complex concepts of bifurcation theory, by making use of elementary mathematics Gives a comprehensive overview of bifurcation of linear and nonlinear structures, in static and dynamic fields Contains a chapter in which many problems are solved, either analytically or numerically, and results commented

A fully updated second edition providing a systematic treatment of engineering dynamics that covers Newton-Euler and Lagrangian approaches. It includes two completely revised chapters, a 350-page solutions manual for instructors, and numerous structured examples and exercises, and is suitable for both senior-level and first-year graduate courses.

This book contains 24 papers presented at the symposium on “Recent Advances in Mechanics” dedicated to the late Professor – Academician Pericles S. Theocaris in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of his death. The papers are written by world renowned and recognized experts in their fields and serve as a reference and guide for future research. The topics covered in the book can be divided into three major themes: Mathematical methods in applied mechanics (nine papers), experimental mechanics (nine papers) and fracture mechanics (six papers). Topics covered include: Application of reciprocity relations to laser-based ultrasonics, boundary value problems of the theory of elasticity, optimal design in contact mechanics, scaling of strength and lifetime distributions of quasibrittle structures, directional distortional hardening in plasticity, vibration of systems, instability phenomena in damped systems, variational methods for static and dynamic elasticity problems, an accelerated Newmark scheme for solving the equations of motion in the time domain, photoelastic tomography, electronic speckle pattern interferometry, composites exposed to fire, sampling moiré, microelecromechanical systems, experimental mechanics in nano-scale, advanced cement based nanocomposites, piezonuclear transmutations in brittle rocks under mechanical loading, stress triaxiality at crack tips studied by caustics, reinforcement of a cracked elastic plate with defects, some actual problems of fracture mechanics, cyclic plasticity with applications to extremely low cycle fatigue of structural steel, and fracture of a highly filled polymer composite.

The book retraces the history of the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (AIMETA) since its establishment in 1965. AIMETA is the official Italian association of mechanics adhering to IUTAM (International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics), which organizes and coordinates a meaningful number of research activities, the most important of which are the biennial National Congress and the internationally renowned journal “Meccanica”, published by Springer. Besides collecting and organizing all related important data and information, as far as possible, by distinguishing among the five scientific areas – general mechanics, solids, structures, fluids, machines – encompassed by AIMETA, the history of the association is assumed as a proper perspective to overview the evolution of theoretical and applied mechanics in Italy over about the last fifty years. This is accomplished in the first part of the book. with also a specific focus on the mechanics of solids and structures, where the biographies of a meaningful number of recognized Italian scholars of mechanics in all areas are also provided, along with testimonials and memories by a few senior people meaningfully involved with AIMETA and Italian mechanics. The second part gives an account, although unavoidably incomplete, of recent developments of mechanical sciences in Italy, as reflected also in the activities of AIMETA and with reference to the international context. Contributions by a number of invited senior scholars, still very active, consist of overviews on some scientific themes in the various areas, summaries of achievements of research groups, expressions of research viewpoints, prospects for future developments.

Bringing together 18 chapters written by leading experts in dynamical systems, operator theory, partial differential equations, and solid and fluid mechanics, this book presents state-of-the-art approaches to a wide spectrum of new and challenging stability problems. Nonlinear Physical Systems: Spectral Analysis, Stability and Bifurcations focuses on problems of spectral analysis, stability and bifurcations arising in the nonlinear partial differential equations of modern physics. Bifurcations and stability of solitary waves, geometrical optics stability analysis in hydro- and magnetohydrodynamics, and dissipation-induced instabilities are treated with the use of the theory of Krein and Pontryagin space, index theory, the theory of multi-parameter eigenvalue problems and modern asymptotic and perturbative approaches. Each chapter contains mechanical and physical examples, and the combination of advanced material and more tutorial elements makes this book attractive for both experts and non-specialists keen to expand their knowledge on modern methods and trends in stability theory. Contents 1. Surprising Instabilities of Simple Elastic Structures, Davide Bigoni, Diego Misseroni, Giovanni Noselli and Daniele Zaccaria. 2. WKB Solutions Near an Unstable Equilibrium and Applications, Jean-François Bony, Setsuro Fujiié, Thierry Ramond and Maher Zerzeri, partially supported by French ANR project NOSEVOL. 3. The Sign Exchange Bifurcation in a Family of Linear Hamiltonian Systems, Richard Cushman, Johnathan Robbins and Dimitrii Sadovskii. 4. Dissipation Effect on Local and Global Fluid-Elastic Instabilities, Olivier Doaré. 5. Tunneling, Librations and Normal Forms in a Quantum Double Well with a Magnetic Field, Sergey Yu. Dobrokhotov and Anatoly Yu. Anikin. 6. Stability of Dipole Gap Solitons in Two-Dimensional Lattice Potentials, Nir Dror and Boris A. Malomed. 7. Representation of Wave Energy of a Rotating Flow in Terms of the Dispersion Relation, Yasuhide Fukumoto, Makoto Hirota and Youichi Mie. 8. Determining the Stability Domain of Perturbed Four-Dimensional Systems in 1:1 Resonance, Igor Hoveijn and Oleg N. Kirillov. 9. Index Theorems for Polynomial Pencils, Richard Kollár and Radomír Bosák. 10. Investigating Stability and Finding New Solutions in Conservative Fluid Flows Through Bifurcation Approaches, Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and Charles H.K. Williamson. 11. Evolution Equations for Finite Amplitude Waves in Parallel Shear Flows, Sherwin A. Maslowe. 12. Continuum Hamiltonian Hopf Bifurcation I, Philip J. Morrison and George I. Hagstrom. 13. Continuum Hamiltonian Hopf Bifurcation II, George I. Hagstrom and Philip J. Morrison. 14. Energy Stability Analysis for a Hybrid Fluid-Kinetic Plasma Model, Philip J. Morrison, Emanuele Tassi and Cesare Tronci. 15. Accurate Estimates for the Exponential Decay of Semigroups with Non-Self-Adjoint Generators, Francis Nier. 16. Stability Optimization for Polynomials and Matrices, Michael L. Overton. 17. Spectral Stability of Nonlinear Waves in KdV-Type Evolution Equations, Dmitry E. Pelinovsky. 18. Unfreezing Casimir Invariants: Singular Perturbations Giving Rise to Forbidden Instabilities, Zensho Yoshida and Philip J. Morrison. About the Authors Oleg N. Kirillov has been a Research Fellow at the Magneto-Hydrodynamics Division of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Germany since 2011. His research interests include non-conservative stability problems of structural mechanics and physics, perturbation theory of non-self-adjoint boundary eigenvalue problems, magnetohydrodynamics, friction-induced oscillations, dissipation-induced instabilities and non-Hermitian problems of optics and microwave physics. Since 2013 he has served as an Associate Editor for the journal Frontiers in Mathematical Physics. Dmitry E. Pelinovsky has been Professor at McMaster University in Canada since 2000. His research profile includes work with nonlinear partial differential equations, discrete dynamical systems, spectral theory, integrable systems, and numerical analysis. He served as the guest editor of the special issue of the journals Chaos in 2005 and Applicable Analysis in 2010. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulations. This book is devoted to the problems of spectral analysis, stability and bifurcations arising from the nonlinear partial differential equations of modern physics. Leading experts in dynamical systems, operator theory, partial differential equations, and solid and fluid mechanics present state-of-the-art approaches to a wide spectrum of new challenging stability problems. Bifurcations and stability of solitary waves, geometrical optics stability analysis in hydro- and magnetohydrodynamics and dissipation-induced instabilities will be treated with the use of the theory of Krein and Pontryagin space, index theory, the theory of multi-parameter eigenvalue problems and modern asymptotic and perturbative approaches. All chapters contain mechanical and physical examples and combine both tutorial and advanced sections, making them attractive both to experts in the field and non-specialists interested in knowing more about modern methods and trends in stability theory.

Handbook of Mechanical Stability in Engineering (In 3 Volumes) is a systematic presentation of mathematical statements and methods of solution for problems of structural stability. It also presents a connection between the solutions of the problems and the actual design practice.This comprehensive multi-volume set with applications in Applied Mechanics, Structural, Civil and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics is useful for research engineers and developers of CAD/CAE software who investigate the stability of equilibrium of mechanical systems; practical engineers who use the software tools in their daily work and are interested in knowing more about the theoretical foundations of the strength analysis; and for advanced students and faculty of university departments where strength-related subjects of civil and mechanical engineering are taught.