plated structures by V, Kristek and M. Skaloud Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1991, 333 pp. Dfl 225 ISBN 0444 987657 As the title implies, this is a specialist book aimed at a graduate or higher level audience dealing in some considerable detail with five specific topics from within the general field of plated structures. It is number 32 in the series 'Developments in Civil Engineering' and, like many of the previous titles, it represents a synthesis of research in a specific area conducted over a period of years by authors from the Eastern part of Europe. Five topics are covered: folded plate theory, shear lag, webs subject to patch loading, longitudinally stiffened flanges and the interaction of buckling and shear lag in stiffened flanges. All of these topics have application in the design of steel plate and box girders of the type used in bridge construction. The material presented is based almost exclusively on the authors' own researches. Thus the style is essentially that of a set of extended research papers, rather than a more wide ranging review of the subject. Throughout the text the authors adopt a rather fundamental approach to their subject. Each chapter, after a brief introduction to the particular topic under
consideration, proceeds with a detailed
mathematical treatment of both the basic problem and of a number of variations. For the chapter on folded plate analysis, the coverage is restricted to the technique itself, with no real mention of computational aspects nor presentation of illustrative examples. Shear lag in wide flanges is given a somewhat more comprehensive treatment, including the presentation of illustrative results and the discussion of alternative analysis methods. This particular chapter may well represent the most detailed coverage of this topic yet published. In dealing with the issue of local effects on webs, the authors' restrict their coverage to the use of the linear buckling theory. Results are presented for a number of illustrative examples but the chapter ends somewhat curiously with a statement directing the reader to an earlier paper of one of the authors reporting on ultimate load tests, the contents of which have not been covered in the text. The discussion of the analysis of the buckling of longitudinally stiffened flanges is also largely confined to the application of the linear buckling theory. Indeed, much of the text is taken up with discussion of various aspects of the interaction between the stiffeners and the flanges and, in some cases the attached webs of a box girder based on analysis using a folded plate approach. The chapter concludes with a brief presentation of an elastic treatment of the post buckling that is illustrated with a single
example case. In the final chapter, the
authors link two of the topics previously considered separately-shear lag and the buckling of longitudinally stiffened flanges in compression-to consider the extent to which shear lag effects influence the buckling behaviour. Unlike the previous chapters much of the work reported is based on the use of nonlinear buckling theory (with failure being related to the development of a limiting stress). Numerous results are presented i n which key parameters are varied, although the chapter ends somewhat abruptly without a general set of concluding statements. This book is likely to be of interest only to those requiring a rather specialist treatment of the subjects considered. It is essentially a book written by reasearchers for others working in the field who wish to extend the authors' work to new applications. Practising engineers are unlikely to have the necessary patience to go through the text in search of material likely to be of direct use to them. The book is well written with clearly produced diagrams. To the researcher in the field it should be relatively easy to follow. However, because of its very specialized nature, it is unlikely to find its way on to many shelves other than those libraries of organizations with an ongoing interest in the research aspects of the behaviour of plated structures.