Customer Reviews

Plasticity and Geomechanics

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I have some experience in plasticity theory and studied all chapters of this book in detail, except 5 and 6 to which I have given a rather cursory reading. In conformity with the "Book description" supplied by Amazon.com, it will be fair to say that I have gained some new insight. But one must equally be careful against misguiding. This is especially so in Chapter 4, where the main ingredients of plastic flow and deformation are presented. Unfortunately in most of the books, the perfect plasticity is visualized through the simple uniaxial stress-strain diagram where no elastic strain increment is possible after yielding. But in case of dimension more than 1, the converse is true and some elastic part in strain increment is almost inevitable. Thus the one dimensional visualization is totally insufficient and misguiding the inexperienced reader's imagination. This book is no exception in this in this regard. I beg to be excused in qualifying the presentation in chapter 4 as unsatisfactory on this and many other reasons. The treatment of strain hardening, which is handled only through the Cam-Clay example in Chapter 7, is also and obviously insufficient even for an introductory book like this.

But at many other places one can find insightful explanations and comments, even including the very basic chapter 1. Yet the reader should stand always keen and careful against any misguiding. I would recommend this book rather as a supplement to gain acquaintance with some different and fresh views both in plasticity theory and Critical State soil mechanics. For the second, consulting also the books of David Muir and John Atkinson is inevitable. John Atkinson, especially, is the master of verbal insightful explanations and presentation according to my idea and taste.