Customer Reviews

Mechanics of Composite Materials

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As a practicing engineer, I was refreshed to find such a well-organized, no-fluff reference on laminated composites. The examples are presented in a concise, piecemeal fashion; they are worked start-to-finish, right down to the algebra in many cases. No insulting assumptions about your level of competence are to be found.

The section on design and analysis provides an excellent arrangement of fully-worked engineering problems ranging from filament-wound driveshafts and pressure vessels (to demonstrate mixed-loadcase scenarios) to weight and cost optimization strategies for those interested in comparing composites to isotropic materials like steel and aluminum.

While the book provides an excellent overview of classical laminated plate theory, the one thing I found to be in want of was a proper section on the analysis of plates and shells. For that, the mathematically inclined reader is directed to J.N. Reddy's authoritative treatise on composites titled Mechanics of Laminated Composite Plates and Shells.

That is not to say that Mr. Kaw's title is in any way inferior to Reddy's work. It's rather like comparing apples to oranges; as such, to pit the two works against one another is inappropriate. On the one hand, Kaw provides a very digestable (and long overdue) introduction to composite materials, going into great detail about the terminology, sign conventions, coordinate systems, and mechanical behavior of composites without becoming long-winded or mathematically convoluted. Reddy picks up where Kaw leaves off, introducing variational methods like the Rayleigh-Ritz method, as well as energy principles from the likes of Galerkin. From there, the reader is presented with a rich array of analytical and numerical methods of finding stresses and strains under various types of loading and boundary conditions (which is what the practicing engineer is ultimately looking for).

What Reddy's work does for layerwise and shear-deformable theories of plates and shells, Kaw has done for the classical description of laminated composites. Mechanics of Composite Materials effectively bridges the gap between the outdated books of yesterday, and the technical articles that belong in academic journals. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a proper introduction to the design and analysis of composites, while still being extremely accessible to the undergraduate.

This book is moderate at best. We used it in a graduate class I am taking as an undergrad. First off, mistakes in the examples and text are not uncommon, and they are very annoying. Second, the examples have too many references to previous examples. It is very annoying to be flipping back 3 chapters to see how an answer was acheived. It is fairly easy to read and the organization is acceptable.

Don't get too excited about the software. It may work well, but there is no written or electronic help/support.

It's a very good book. It's easy to read. It contains a very good explanations about the mechanical behaviour of laminas and laminates.

This book has described the materials very well. It is really perfect to be a textbook. Good examples and problems.

This book is very good! I recommend it to any mechanical engineering student. It help me out alot!