Mechanical design in organisms / S.A. Wainwright [and three others].

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Wainwright, Stephen A., 1931- author.

Contributor:

• Biggs, W. D., Contributor.
• Currey, J. D., Contributor.
• Gosline, J. M., Contributor.
• Wainwright, S. A., Contributor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Strength of materials.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 423 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1982]

Summary:

This book deals with an interface between mechanical engineering and biology. Available for the first time in paperback, it reviews biological structural materials and systems and their mechanically important features and demonstrates that function at any particular level of biological integration is permitted and controlled by structure at lower levels of integration.Five chapters discuss the properties of materials in general and those of biomaterials in particular. The authors examine the design of skeletal elements and discuss animal and plant systems in terms of mechanical design. In a concluding chapter they investigate organisms in their environments and the insights gained from study of the mechanical aspects of their lives.

Contents:

• Frontmatter
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• Contents
• List of symbols
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Part I. Materials
• Chapter 2A. Principles of the strength of materials: Phenomenological description
• Chapter 2B. Principles of the strength of materials: Molecular interpretation
• Chapter 3. Tensile materials
• Chapter 4. Pliant materials
• Chapter 5. Rigid materials
• Chapter 6. Elements of structural systems
• Chapter 7. Support in organisms
• Part III. Ecomechanics
• Chapter 8. Ecological mechanics
• References—Author index
• Subject Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

• 9780691218090
• 0691218099

OCLC:

1248759956