The question whether a structure or a machine component can carry the applied loads, and with what margin of safety, or whether it will become unserviceable due to collapse or excessive inelastic deformations, has always been a major concern for civil and mechanical engineers. The purpose of this book is a presentation of state-of-the-art methods which provide conceptual and computational means to answer this technologically crucial question without analysing the evolution of the system under monotonic or variable repeated loads.
The focus is on recent developments which may be classified as follows:
The focus is on recent developments which may be classified as follows:
- Adaptation of the general theoretical achievements to specific types of structures and, at the micro-scale, to heterogeneous materials;
- Generalisation of the basic theory to dynamics, i.e. to the time-dependence due to inertia and damping forces;
- Reformulation of the fundamental theorems in the broader frame of geometrically non-linear theory of solids and structures;
- Allowing for more sophisticated models of inelastic material behaviour, including non-linear hardening and softening, non-associated flow rules, viscous effects, multi-phase poro-plasticity, and material damage;
- Development of computational procedures and specific ad-hoc algorithms by which direct methods can be efficiently used to solve large-scale industrial problems.
