Development of Studies in the History of Elasticity Theory and Structural Mechanics

Abstract

The development of the History of Rational Mechanics covers about 150 years only. However, historical studies at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century were usually restricted to the principles of the Mechanics of Discrete Systems. The first professional review of the history of elasticiry theory was given by Adhémar Barré de Saint-Venant in his Historique abrégé des recherches sur la résistance et sur l'élasticite des corps solides (1864). Another exception is the History of the theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials from Galilei to Lord Kelvin (1886-1893) by Isaac Todhunter and Karl Pearson, which presents on 2200 pages summaries of most of the works on selected topics. During the nineteenth century, Mechanics was mainly considered to be a part of Applied Mathematics. A significant change occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century when Continuum Mechanics acquired special significance. In the middle of that century, Stephen Timoshenko published the History of Strength of Materials with a brief Account of the History of Theory of Elasticity and Theory of Structures (1953). Although this historical essay was extremely informative, Clifford Truesdell was the first to begin in the 1950s broad and profound investigations into the History of Continuum Mechanics. First of all, his work is distinguished by a thorough knowledge of the sources. He was perhaps the only famous, creatively working scientist in Rational Mechanics who was professionally engaged in the History of Mechanics as well, and he can be rightly considered the founder of its modern trends. The history of structural mechanics was treated in the spirit of Truesdellian fundamentals later by Edoardo Benvenuto in his numerous studies and, particularly, in An Introduction to the History of Struccural Mechanics (1991). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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