Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 100 (1992) 291

North-Holland

Book review
Computational aspects of contact, impact and penetration, Ronald F. Kulak and Leonard
E. Schwer, Editors (Elmepress International, PO Box 2, CH-1015 Lausanne 15, Switzerland, 1991)
The objective of Computational aspects of contact, impact and penetration, edited by R.F.
Kulak and L.E. Schwer, is to bring together the experience of specialists in contact, impact
and penetration mechanics. The physical phenomena considered in this volume range for
manufacturing processes to penetration problems involving projectiles at moderate velocities,
and the computational emphasis is on explicit Lagrangian and arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian
finite element formulations. The majority of the book is devoted to impact (9 papers), with
the papers ranging from the theoretical to the application of existing software packages to real
world problems. Topics include shell element formulations (Engelmann and Whirley), shell
buckling (Kirkpatrick and Holmes), viscoelastic models for energy absorbers (Schwer, Cheva
and Hallquist), the dynamic response of pipelines to explosives (Parnell and Caligiuri), shock
capturing methods (Benson), collision restitution (Brach), post-impact oscillations and discrete model phenomena (Salamon, Hassan and Chern), spectral methods for wave motion in
frames (Doyle and Farris) and force identification (Rizzi and Doyle). The two contributions
on contact are on arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian Contact algorithms (Kan and Liu) and the
use of energy balance equations (Key and Tsay). A summary of supercomputing and
computational penetration mechanics (Zukas and Kimsey) is presented in the penetration
section along with two computational studies: the penetration of geological targets (Chen and
Reedy), and blunt projectile impact (Schulz and Heimdahl).
David Benson

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.