Kinetic Theory of Engineering Structures Dealing With Stresses, Deformations and Work, for the Use of Students and Practitioners in Civil Engineering #233049

"All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying in magic preservation in the pages of books"; and so in presenting this work for publication, the author hopes to preserve the results of many years of painstaking labors, study and experience, to civil engineering, his chosen profession.<br><br>The field of usefulness which it is proposed to supply is that of an advanced treatise on stresses and deformations in engineering structures, for the use of students and practitioners in civil engineering and particularly for specialists engaged in the design of so-called "higher structures" requiring more than the ordinary methods of statics for their analysis.<br><br>The reader is supposed to possess a thorough knowledge of higher mathematics, including the calculus; also, of the elements of statics, embracing the composition and resolution of forces, force and equilibrium polygons, etc. All these are usually given in the two first years of a Civil Engineering course in connection with mathematics and mechanics.<br><br>Details pertaining to the design of bridge members and connections are not dealt with.<br><br>The present volume might advantageously be employed as a text-book in bridge stresses with the aim of giving a more thorough training in the analysis of stresses and deformations by economizing somewhat on the time at present devoted to detailing and shop practice, which is not really justified in a four-year course of theoretical preparation.<br><br>In the opinion of the author this would be highly desirable, because details and shop practice can best be learned in the shop, where experience is the teacher. It devolves on the college to give to its students that thorough theoretical training which they cannot readily acquire in practice, a feature which must ultimately distinguish the college-bred engineer from the purely practical man.<br><br>The present work, which is the gradual evolution of years of labor, thus represents an effort to place before the profession a treatise on the analysis of engineering structures which is based on the most advanced theories and researches of the present time.<br><br>To enhance the educational value of the book, each subject is prefaced by a few brief historical remarks and all important theorems bear the names of their originators, a practice which has been shamefully neglected by many modem writers.<br><br>The author has made free use of any and all literature bearing on the various subjects treated and hereby expresses his grateful acknowledgment to all who have contributed to the sum total of our present knowledge.