Probabilistic Theory of Structures

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the price
Review: A nice, interesting book with a lot of useful information on probabilistic structural analysis, but does not follow the current industrial practice that is leaning towards stochastic FEA and FORM/SORM based limit state analysis. If you want to understand modern structural reliability theory, or plan to work in probabiistic design, I would strongly reccomend the textbooks by Haldar & Mahadevan. In short, Prof. Elishakoff's book will be a nice companion volume, but not a main reference. Cant beat the price, though.

Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: This book is a very lucidly written one in the area of probabilitistic applications in mechanics and vibratrions. The first chapter is an introduction in to the history of probability and its roots. The book begins with an introduction to probability and probability distributions and this is covered in the initial couple of chapters. The second chapter deals with the basics of probability involving set thory. The third and fourth chapters deals with the basic concepts of probability and deals with different probability distributions in practice. In the next couple of chapters the concepts of derived distributions are covered. The concept of derived distributions along with transformations used are covered in the fourth and fifth chapters. The theory of random functions are covered in the sixth chapter. Then the application of probability and stochastic processes to structural mechanics for example stability, vibration theory have been covered. The final chapter is on the random number generation. It deals with Monte Carlo simulation of probability distributions and random functions.