Nonlinear mechanics of materials (Q2726237)

The book is written by a group of authors, all of them well-known for their research works in the field of material modelling, and, obviously, with great teaching experience. The book starts on a very elementary level, by introducing the models first in a one-dimensional way by means of different rheological models, before generalising to three dimensions for small deformations. However, further the authors put these models in a general thermodynamic frame, and already discuss the numerical integration of the resulting codes. The framework for the modelling is the theory of internal variables, which turns out to be rather practical and applicable. Apart from elasticity, plasticity, and viscoelasticity, the authors give a profound introduction to viscoplasticity and to continuum damage theory. Also, micro-macro transition is carefully described. Another feature of the book is the treatment of Cosserat models, a field of material theory which hardly reached a textbook level before. In such a way the book includes fields of recent research interests, and under this aspect it is worth reading, and it is also desirable that an English or German translation would be issued. A very interesting chapter deals with localisation phenomena. Although large parts of the book are presented in a geometrically nonlinear setting, apt for large deformations, this latter part is restricted to small deformations. This might be a challenge for the authors for further editions of this book. There are lots of recent references added, especially those from French authors.