Introduction to Continuum Mechanics for Engineers: With Solved Problems

This textbook provides an overview of the fundamental concepts in continuum mechanics for application in real material behavior analysis. The contents cover basic topics such as Kinematics―the motion of any material point representing a material body using the Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches; stress tensors―stress analysis of material bodies experiencing small deformations; mathematical modeling of material properties in continuum mechanics; balance principles―transfer of specific mechanical properties from a system to its environment or vice-versa through the system boundary. The textbook also contains pedagogical elements such as worked examples and end-of-chapter exercises which are derived from typical engineering problems, and the solution manual so that students can solve computational problems by running simulations on Matlab or Python on their own. This benefits engineering students understand the concept of continuum mechanics for future analysis using finite-element analysis, boundary element method or any other computational methods.

Nik Abdullah Nik Mohamed is a professor in Mechanical Engineering at the faculty of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering Technology, University of Malaysia Pahang. Nik Abdullah graduated with Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Applied Science Munich, Germany, in 1979 and received both his Master degree (Diplom-Ingenieur) and Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing) in 1983 and 1991 from the Technical University of Berlin, where he was appointed as a research and teaching associate by the university from 1985 to 1992. In Malaysia, he began his lectureship career at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) in 1992 and continued his academic service in the year 2013 at the University of Malaysia Pahang (UMP). Prof. Nik Abdullah’s research focuses on the application of continuum mechanics in describing the mechanical and thermodynamic properties of materials and in particular of smart materials, auxetic materials and bulk metallic glasses. In addition, he also actively involvedin research and teaching in the area of mechanical vibration and reliability engineering. He has published over 100 research papers, three chapters and two research books.