BOOK REVIEW

Advanced analysis and design of

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.

D.A. Nethecot

Eng. Struct. 1992, Vol. 14, No 2

133