Cheap Mechanics of Materials (Book) (James M. Gere) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mechanics of Materials

Beams, Beams, and more Beams
I know that this is considered THE mechanics of materials textbook. And paging through it, you can see that the text and figures are very well done, with every effort made to make the material clearly accessible. So in this respect, the book shines. My main objection with this text is its content. Every imaginable method of beam analysis is presented, and the tendency is to treat every stress problem as some sort of beam. Thus if you're a civil engineer designing beams, you'll probably like this book. But if you are a mechanical engineer, responsible for designing mating parts with complex geometries, you'll be sorrily disappointed. Mechanical parts in the real world are not prismatic beams, perfect cylinders, and other utopian forms. They have threads, fillets, holes and other discontinuities that produce stress concentrations -- stress concentrations that have devastating effects in fatigue if not properly accounted for. I know that some will say "Hey, if you want fatigue analysis, get a Machine Design text". But come on, let's be realistic. Many undergrad students will never go on to take such a course, and the fact that well over 90% of real world failures are fatigue failures necessitates that more than 10 pages out of 900 be dedicated to this subject. Also, there is little if any coverage on 3-dimensional stress, plate and shell theory, plasticity, tensors, and a ton of other stuff that is not overly complex, but is used everywhere in the real world. I don't care how "elementary" the book claims to be. If it's over 900 pages, it should cover these important topics. Maybe someday we'll have more practicing engineers writing textbooks -- textbooks that treat real life problems, rather than fictional, academic idealizations.

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Mechanics of Materials
I bought this book as a supplement to my old school text because an engineer can never have enough good resouces in the working world. I chose it after much research as it was well recommended as THE BOOK to have. I have found it to be an excellent reference book. Most all the homework problems have answers in the back as a check. The publishing and editing qualities are excellent.

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Great introductory text for strength of materials
I was surprised at how clear and thorough this book was. I read almost the entire book (left out just a number of sections), and if you're like me and need to know the proofs for the engineering models, then this is great. It explained derivations, equation limitations, and problem-solving methods in a very satisfying way - I can honestly say that, because of this book, I have a better appreciation for how engineering methods are developed. Assuming you've studied differential equations and statics, then this book will be just right for you.

All the problems have solutions in the back, which was very helpful. However, occasionally I ran into problems that I needed detailed solutions to, so you might need to see your professor about those. Also, I have a strong feeling that maybe 3-4 problems out of the ~100 that I did had wrong or oversimplified solutions- but I could be wrong, or I used different approximation methods. So not counting that tiny minority of aggravating problems, this book is both pleasantly informative and challenging, and it made me continue to like engineering, unlike some other books/classes I've used/taken.