Customer Reviews

Advanced Strength and Applied Elasticity (4th Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm a student in mechanical engineering, and I recently took a class called Advanced Mechanics of Materials. Unfortunately, this book was the required textbook for the course. I know that a lot of text books can be considered "bad", but this is by far the worst textbook I have ever used.

Ideally a textbook will explain concepts well and give relevant examples to reinforce the concepts. The textbook does neither. This textbook explains concepts extremely poorly which makes it bad enough. On top of that, moreover, this book does not give examples for 90% of the concepts.

If this book is the required text for a course, I would recommend changing classes. If you're looking for a book on advanced mechanics of materials, this is NOT a good book to consider. I would have given this book zero stars if that had been an option.

Engineering has its share of poorly-written books, and this is certainly one of them. Rather than give a clear, concise explanations, the authors instead focus on pointless derivations and other filler material that's of little use to the student. The result is a confusing mess that makes students like myself frustrated and stressed.

The problems are only compounded by the lack of examples. To me, in engineering books, examples are just as important as explanations because let's face it, engineering is *not* an abstract art. Its basis is the physical application of scientific theories to real-world problems. Sadly, this book's examples are all too limited in scope, explanation, and depth. The authors will derive equations for multiple sections and then have a single, brief, elementary example (where barely anything is explained and you're forced to become a psychic to determine their line of thought) and then expect you to do the exponentially more difficult problems in the back of each chapter. It's ridiculous.

When I first got the book, I thought it was interesting they were able to cram such an involved field into a relatively small book (~500 small-sized pages). Then you realize they were able to do such a feat by skipping over tremendous amounts of vital explanations and examples.

Be prepared to be flipping through the book constantly to refer back to formulas in various chapters, and also be prepared to scratch your head staring at terrible illustrations. Equations are also poorly labeled because when you're quickly flipping through the pages, it's quite difficult to see if an equation is one of importance, or simply an intermediate step in a derivation. Good books box their important or foundational equations (which of course means this book does not).

What's really sad is that poorly-written books like this one have the capability to turn an otherwise-enthused student off from a topic. Before taking a class where this book was the assigned reading, I was quite interested in advanced stress analysis. Now I look upon the subject with disdain because it seems like a big confusing mess.

I gave the book one star for two reasons: first, Amazon doesn't allow 0-star reviews, and second, perhaps the book would be of some use for reference, but as far as a text for learning the material, avoid at all costs!

I found myself reviewing the details of other books checked out from the library (Timoshenko 1956, Seely and Smith 1952, Boresi 2003, and Hibbeler 2003) often hidden in this text just to do the exercise. Furthermore, a lot of examples were the same as those from other textbooks but with much less clarity here. The diagrams were often confusing and the details showing the development of the theory were often highly masked or left out completely. On a positive note (if there is actually one), the book will probably be used later for reference, because, after struggling through the minute details and solving the problems posed here, I have a better understanding of the principles, but definitely NOT because of this book or the professor who used it almost exclusively to teach the course!

Will the authors do the right thing and let this book expire and go out of print? It's sad to see how these authors attempt to create clarity of thought and "magically impress" by creating theories without solid rational arguments...oh wait, there is a name for this. It's called hand waving. It is when someone makes a claim and, instead of actually (rationally) arguing their point, they skip around the issue leaving you breathless in wonderment at how smart they are, or rather nauseous at how they can't come up with a clear logical thought without stealing problems from other textbooks. Anyway, let's just skip to chapter 10 and find out about energy methods, oh wait, there is a reference to a more "mathematically rigorous" way in refs 10.1 through 10.3. Let out a sigh of relief, "ahhhhh".... how easy it is to point to other more useful references than your own work, you silly authors you. Just sit back and enjoy taking in the students dollars from your "classic" textbook. Maybe in the 5th edition, it can be written in binary and encoded so that all readers can enjoy spending time decrypting the message before studying the material, but then again that requires the authors to understand something. Lets give them an award for finding ways to make 2+2 seem like proving the Riemann Hypothesis.

This book covers the elementary topic of mechanics of material (stress-strain relations, etc.) and more advanced applied topics (thin plate & shell, energy method, etc.). The elementary topics are well organized and easy to understand, but the more advanced topics are not enough, especially on plate and shell theory.

Right now I am using this book for my undergraduate course of Advance Stress Analysis. And So far this is the worst book I have ever read. Confusing concepts and diagrams, materials are not presented clearly and the language of the books itself is so rigid and vague. I would definitely recommend not to use this this book by any means.

Many Engineering text books lately do not seem to be written well. I feel that this is not the fault of the authors as much as it is the fault of the editor. This book overall is not in my worst text book list, but can be improved very easily. I have given it a 2 star rating, meaning that it still can be improved upon and until it is improved it is a difficult book to follow.

The problems with this book are:
1. Example problems are not included in the text in a sequential order. Instead a concept is introduced and five pages later there is an example problem with that material. The example problems should be there to reinforce the theoretical material. When it is so many pages later it is difficult to know what the example is trying to show.

2. There are too many formulas included in text lines. Formulas should be written in a formula type instead of included within a paragraph. When it is in the paragraph it makes it difficult to follow.

3. Topic names and definitions of concepts should be highlighted so the reader can easily go from one topic to another with a better understanding of the material.

4. As I am reading the text I have made my own illustrations for my own study. I therefore believe that the editor, with an understanding of the material, could have been able to include illustrations.

5. There is a constant reference to formulas written in previous chapters. Just rewrite the formula if it is so important to the understanding of the material. Instead the reader is in a constant state of turning pages. I am glad this book has a good binding.

To the authors: Since I am attending your University, Please do not take my criticism personally. Instead, listen to my fellow students when the review time comes about our course.

The book makes things look difficult, but I'm pretty sure they are not that difficult. One of the worst books I have had so far. The book does not explain theories in a good way, and no examples after every section to help you understand the material.

I took a continuum mechanics class that used this book, and at the time I found it very confusing. I kept the book and I still do research in this area, 10 years after I took the class. I find that I frequently reference this book, which has pretty good explanations and a very complete list of formulae and concepts about continuum mechanics.

This book is by far the worst textbook I have ever used. The author does not present ideas logically or coherently. Many explanations, despite being unnecessarily wordy, are vague.
I had already covered failure criteria (chapter 4) in another class but still found myself confused due to the author's poor writing style -- thankfully, I still had my old notes.
If you are a professor looking for a textbook for your class, please DO NOT use this book. I actually purchased another book on elasticity because this one is so awful.