BOOK REVIEWS

Waves in ocean engineering

M. J. Tucker

Ellis Horwood, Chichester, 1991,

431pages, ISBN 0 13 932955 2
Waves in Ocean Engineering is one of a
series of texts covering various aspects of
marine science published by Ellis Horwood. The book is well produced with
clear text and figures as well as a comprehensive list of references. The book
should be particularly useful to engineers,
naval architects and scientists working
with the ocean surface environment as well
as students studying marine science.
With our ever increasing use of the
oceans for a wide range of activities such
as fossil fuel recovery, offshore and
coastal development, aquaculture and
renewable energy, it is essential to
describe and understand wave action in
order to survive this hostile environment.
The mathematical description of ocean
waves is a complex subject and the equations are often semi-empirical, combining
fundamental theory with observation. The
measurement and prediction of wave
climates is also difficult and considerable
experience is needed to interpret the data
produced. There are very few comprehensive texts on this subject and often the
marine engineer has to rely on a variety of
technical papers each dealing with specific
aspects of the subject.
This book provides a comprehensive and
coherent picture of how wave data is
obtained I interpreted for practical application, successfully combining theory and
practice. The application of wave data to
offshore and coastal engineering design is
not included.
Following a brief introduction outlining
the requirements for wave information
sources of wave data and a discussion of
freak waves and spectral analysis the
reader is provided with a complete chapter
on basic concepts and definitions This
chapter is particularly useful as it provides
a concise reference manual for the most
commonly used equations Further theory
is introduced progressively throughout the
book when required to describe particular
aspects of waves. For example Chapter 9
describes how the wave characteristics are
transformed by the sea bed topography
Consequently a prior knowledge of ocean
waves is not assumed.
Much of the book is devoted to describing methods of obtaining wave data and the
subsequent analysis and interpretation of
the measurements made. Methods of

measuring wave climates both directly and

remotely are described along with the
appropriate analysis techniques for each
type of system. Equipment and analysis
techniques for producing both omnidirectional and directional spectra are included.
A chapter is devoted to wind-wave interaction and the techniques available for
forecasting wave climates This is
extremely useful as measured wave data is
not often available at the site of interest and
so it is necessary to predict wave climates
from meteorological data. A further
chapter describes how extreme waves can
be predicted from limited field data.
Finally there is a discussion of nonlinear
effects and the errors and uncertainties
associated with the theory presented and
the techniques described.
The forces induced by breaking waves
often produce the most significant design
loads on structures which are located in
shallow coastal waters. Unfortunately this
important subject is only discussed briefly
in the book and is dispersed throughout the
chapters. It could be argued that a complete chapter should be devoted to this
topic.
In conclusion, the author has clearly
identified the requirement, for a book of
this type. It is a comprehensive reference
book for those working with the ocean surface environment and is therefore highly
recommended.

T. J. T. Whittaker

Stability of structures
Z. J. Bazant and L. Cedolin

OUP, Oxford, 1991, 70, ISBN

O- 19-505529-2
And still the wonder grew, that two small
heads could carry all they knew

A book of almost 1000 pages, weighing

1620 grams and costing 70, by two
authors with unpronounceable names is
enough to daunt the most seasoned
reviewer To what extent is this first
impression sustained by a detailed study of
the contents ? The title of the book suggests an account of buckling behaviour and
this is evidently the major theme. But the
authors take a much wider view of the term
'stability' than this. They include theories
of fracture and damage, and even the
effects of creep (though this does not
appear in the subtitle). The book is really

a compendium of information about most

of the ways in which structures lose their
ability to support load.
The book, like others of its kind, starts
with an account of the buckling of columns. Here is a remarkably compact treatment of the subject, quite densely written,
but expressed clearly and simply, with a
precise use of language that minimizes the
risk of ambiguity and misunderstanding. In
the space of 46 pages the discussion
develops from basic bending theory,
through the use of the differential equation, to imperfect struts, the basis of codes
of practice, the effects of shear, and then
on to large deflections, closing with a short
section on spatial buckling under torque
and axial force (a subject developed further
in a later chapter) This is all standard
material but the authors bring it to life with
some unusual examples and illustrations.
Some of these are concerned with the surprising effects of certain boundary conditions; others with the behaviour of
columns containing liquids under pressure,
or columns with pretstressed tendons
Even sandwich columns come under
scrutiny, though the effect of thick faces is
not considered.
In much the same style, the authors
dispose of framework instability, again
with many interesting and curious
examples. There are perhaps two ways of
dealing with this topic In the 'traditional'
approach, judgement and structural intuition are called upon to provide short cuts
and simple rules that minimize the need for
computation. Wood and Home were
perhaps the chief exponents of this. In
some cases this has produced elegant and
simple
approximate
methods
for
calculating critical loads. On the other
hand, the would-be practitioner of this
approach has to spend much time in
arduous apprenticeship before the requisite
understanding and appreciation of structural behaviour can be acquired. The other
way of dealing with the buckling of
frameworks is the straightforward technique of number-crunchingon the computer
Generations of technical papers on
methods for the analysis of frameworks
(linear and nonlinear) have long since
become systematized in a handful of
techniques which, once enshrined in a
computer package, will provide all that
most engineers will want to know, at the
press of a button. Our authors begin with
a generous nod in the direction of the traditional approach through the use of stiffness
and carry-over factors before going on to
matrix methods, postcritical behaviour and

Eng Struct. 1992, Vol. 14, No 5 347

imperfection sensitivity. They do not dwell

on the minutiae of computational techniques. Instead they have much to say
about special kinds of framework and how
to tackle them. Examples are large regular
frames, 'indeterminate' trusses, battened
columns and columns with shear, arches
and rings, tall frames, and the representation of regular frames as a continua. These
all provide useful insights into structural
behaviour not easily found elsewhere in
the literature.
The authors go on to deal quite extensively with thin-walled beams, plates and
shells, and elasto-plastic buckling of columns and frameworks. Yet, still, half the
book remains. It is this extra material that
sets it apart from lesser books on stability,
for it includes not only a comprehensive
examination of stability as a dynamic
phenomenon, and energy methods and
their offshoots (snap-back, catastrophes,
and so on), and the stability of inelastic
structures, but also some more specialized
topics.
One of these, creep-buckling, has been
of interest to aerostructures specialists
since the 1950s, when the effect of prolonged high temperatures on the performance of alloy compression members first
started to become important. As in most
studies of this kind the authors begin with
a comprehensive battery of springs and
dash pots arranged in various ways to
model the creep characteristics of the
material. While this may be necessary to
make the analysis tractable, one cannot
help feeling a little uneasy at the absence of
any connection between the mathematical
model and the molecular mechanisms on
which it is based. It is interesting to see
that much of this section of the book is
devoted to the practical question of how
the strength of concrete columns is
influenced by the aging of the concrete.
Another welcome addition to the usual
range of topics is a treatment of
instabilities in three-dimensional continua.
These are important for highly an isotropic
materials, for structures such as sandwich
or lattice columns (where shear deformations are important), and for structures in
which tangential stiffness is reduced by
plasticity or damage. This may seem a difficult way of approaching sandwich and
lattice columns, but the applications to
fibre-reinforced composites are interesting
and deserve further study.
It may be surprising to see fracture
treated in a book on stability, but the
authors have no hesitation in seeing it as a
stability problem, and this is in fact the title
of the penultimate chapter, which presents
a rich variety of information on crack
behaviour in different environments. The
final chapter is on the effects of damage or
localized softening behaviour and it is
perhaps here that the most esoteric subjects
are to be found, such as the behaviour of

348

a bar whose ends are moved simultaneously outwards at constant velocity.

The central idea here is the way in which
the localization of softening damage into a
small zone can produce bifurcations and
instabilities. For example, there is much
discussion of the load dflection and snapback characteristics of beams with softening hinges.
The authors waste no space on
unnecessary words, but the directness of
their approach makes much of the book
accessible to anyone with the requisite
background knowledge. The practising
engineer, confronted with an unusual practical problem, may find valuable insights
in the parts that deal with columns, plates,
shells and beams. Only the specialist will
appreciate the sections on creep-buckling,
fracture and damage, as well as the parts
that deal with methods and techniques. All
will profit from the way in which unusual
examples are used to illuminate unfamiliar
aspects of the subject-matter. These thousand pages represent an invaluable distillation of knowledge on all aspects of this
notoriously difficult subject and the book
will surely be treasured as a work of
reference for years to come.

H. G. Allen

An introduction to shell
structures: the art and science
of vaulting
Michele Melaragno
Van Nostrand Reinhold, New
York, 199 I, xiv + 4 2 8 page
(Chapman and Hall, UK,
543.50), ISBN 0-442-23725-1
The author is a professional engineer who
is also a professor of architecture (University of North Carolina). This book on the
art and science of shells is very strong on
art - and not so strong on science. The
'engineering' sections of the books are in
places barely adequate, in places irrelevant, and in places inaccurate. Further,
some of the most significant technical concepts receive scant or no treatment.
There can be no quarrel with the broad
sweep of the book, The first part deals with
wood and masonry domes, their origins
and symbolism, and their history from
ancient to Islamic, through Romanesque to
the present. An astonishing range of
examples is illustrated and described, but
without any unifying technical thread. For
example, the bulbous 'onion' domes of
Russia are well exposed, but there is no
discussion of the fact that a shell which
embraces more than a hemisphere cannot
be stable without tensile reinforcement (or
without cheating by not being a shell at all!
Professor Melaragno is clear, elsewhere in

Eng. Struct. 1992, Vol. 14, No 5

the book, that the dome of the Capitol in

Washington cheats by being not a shell, but
a cast-iron structure).
Theory, for the spherical shell, is first
introduced at about page 90; immediately
Professor Melaragno fails to distinguish
clearly between internal shell forces and
necessary edge supports. ('At the bottom
of a dome ... there is always a tension
force, which is usually absorbed by a tension ring at the base'. There are, in fact,
many ways of supporting a dome, and,
earlier, the author makes no comment on
the inclined drum of St Paul's, London,
although this is illustrated.) In the next
piece of simple analysis, that of the barrel
vault, the author reaches the wrong conclusions. 'The long barrel carries the
distributed load to the supports just as a
beam would . . . .
'As in a beam, the
longitudinal axial forces in the upper part
of the barrel are compressive, with those in
the lower part being tensile'. These
statements are not true; the longitudinal
forces are always compressive, and the
'free' lower edges of the barrel require
reinforcement with structural elements to
carry shear. Edges of shells are all important, and are hardly mentioned by the
author; as a final example, the Kresge
Auditorium at MIT is described without
any mention of its structural defects.
The author fails also to communicate any
deep nonmathematical understanding of
the behaviour of shells. For example,
'Gaudi's major accomplishment was the
development of the hyperbolic paraboloid'. This is curiously blinkered. Gaudy's
accomplishment was to take Robert
Hooke's powerful statement (1675): 'As
hangs the flexible line, so but inverted will
stand the rigid arch', and to develop this to
fantastic limits. Professor Melaragno of
course
knows
about
the
statical
equivalence of the hanging tensile cord and
the inverted compressive arch; but it was
Gaudi who photographed cords and sheets
in his studio, and turned the prints upside
down to give his monumental designs,
none of which are mentioned in the book.
And the author quotes Poleni (1748), but
seems oblivious of Poleni's brilliant use of
these ideas in his analysis of St Peter's,
Rome.
All of this leads to a lack of confidence
in the author as a guide to the understanding of shell action. On the other hand, the
descriptions of what can actually be done
in the twentieth century are good, with a
wide range of concrete and skeletal-steel
structures illustrated. The book ends with
46 virtually meaningless pages; reprinted
without commentary are titles and summaries of 237 publications on shells, as
noted in The Enineering Index for 1989.
Many of these papers are irrelevant to the
topics of the book.

J. Heyman