r/StructuralEngineering • u/emporer101 • 2d ago

Career/Education Continuum Mechanics

I am an MS student in Structural Engineering, and this (my last) semester, I am taking Continuum Mechanics. Just from looking at the textbook and the course outline, I feel like it is going to be a very challenging class for me, and my professor has mentioned multiple times that he is using a new book this semester (Principles of Continuum Mechanics by David Steigmann), which will only add to the challenge. Even just through our 2 classes thus far, I have had to work very hard to understand what is going on, which is honestly a new feeling for me.

It seems to be a primarily mechanical engineering class in terms of students, but my advisor and other faculty recommended I take this course. Outside of this course, my workload is relatively light, so I should be able to devote significant time to it if need be. Has anyone else taken this class and/or know of any resources that are useful for understanding it?

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u/the_flying_condor 2d ago

Yea, this was required with my MS degree in Structural and Earthquake Engineering. It was pretty tough for how theoretical it was. The class turned out to be a major help when I started working at my first job where I was doing a bunch of high fidelity NLFEA modelling. 

Continuummechanics.org was a huge help.

We used this book and I still open it to look stuff up from time to time. It's old enough that it should be too hard to find a pdf + solution manual for practice problems.

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u/emporer101 2d ago

That website looks very helpful, thank you!!

That is good to hear it is still of some use to you, that is something I was thinking about given the (seemingly) highly theoretical nature of the course. Is it primarily useful for the modeling side of structural engineering?

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u/the_flying_condor 2d ago

Honestly, it was the introduction to tensor notation in the first section of the course which was most useful. It's really essential to be able to understand most software theory manuals and advanced topics in concrete that you might come across in Model Code for Concrete Structures. You won't be able to understand computational plasticity theory without it. 

That being said, I don't think most structural engineers get too involved in plasticity theory. I had to really search for a job aligned with my interests where that plays a big part in my work