Addendum for Second Edition

Plans for the second edition were inaugurated in 2007, when Professor Pierce was still alive. All his colleagues at Georgia Tech and in the technical community at large were saddened to learn of his death in November 2008. Afterward, plans for the second edition were somewhat slow to develop.

The changes made for the second edition include additional material along with extensive reorganization. Instructors may choose to omit certain sections without breaking the continuity of the overall treatment. Foundational material in mechanics and structures was somewhat expanded to make the treatment more self-contained and collected into a single chapter. It is hoped that this new organization will facilitate students who do not need this review to easily skip it, and that students who do need it will find it convenient to have it consolidated into one relatively short chapter. A discussion of stability is incorporated, along with a review of how single-degree-of-freedom systems behave as key parameters are varied. More detail is added for obtaining numerical solutions of characteristic equations in structural dynamics. Students are introduced to finite-element structural models, making the material more commensurate with industry practice. Material on control reversal in static aeroelasticity has been added. Discussion on numerical solution of the flutter determinant via Mathematica™ replaces the method presented in the first edition for interpolating from a set of candidate reduced frequencies. The treatment of flutter analysis based on complex eigenvalues is expanded to include an unsteady-aerodynamics model that has its own state variables. Finally, the role of flight-testing and certification is discussed. It is hoped that the second edition will not only maintain the text’s uniqueness as an undergraduate-level treatment of the subject, but that it also will prove to be more useful in a first-year graduate course.

Dewey H. Hodges

Atlanta, Georgia

INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS AND AEROELASTICITY, SECOND EDITION