Strength of Materials – Belyaev

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From the current edition:

The new edition of Strength of Materials by N. M. Belyaev has been published after 11 years. In 33 years that lapsed between the publication by N. M. Belyaev of the first edition in 1932 and the last fourteenth edition in 1965 a total of 675 000 copies of the book were sold, testifying to its wide popularity. During this period the book was periodically enlarged and revised by N. M. Belyaev and, after his death in 1944, by a group of four of his co-workers. This group, which prepared from the fifth to the fourteenth editions for publication, did not consider it proper to make substantial changes in the original work of N. M. Belyaev. Additions were done at one time or another only when they became absolutely necessary due to changes in standards and technical specifications and in the light of recent research.

In the present edition, prepared by the same group, a number of topics have been dropped either owing to their irrelevance to strength of materials or because they are rarely taught in the main course.

Considering the availability of a large number of problem books (see, for instance, Problems on Strength of Materials edited by V. K. Kachurin) on the market, most of the examples have been dropped from the present edition. Only examples that are essential for the explanation of theoretical part have been retained. For greater compactness the problem of design for safe loads has now been included in Chapter 26 For the first time the chapter includes the principles of design for limiting states, which though beyond the limits of the basic course of strength of materials are important enough to require an exposition of the basic concepts even at this stage of teaching.

The problems of strength, which in the previous editions occupied two chapters, have been grouped into one. The part dealing with actual stresses has been transferred to Chapter 2, where it has been presented in a sufficiently detailed manner. The tables containing data on materials have been dropped from the appendices. A part of the data on materials has been transferred to 8 Preface to the Fifteenth Russian Edition corresponding sections. The obsolete steel proliles grading has been replaced by new ones.

As in the previous editions it was our endeavour to preserve Belyaev’s style and method of presentation of material. Therefore the author’s text has in general been preserved. If Nikolai Mikhailovich Belyaev were alive today he would possibly write many things in a different way. However, since the book won wide popularity as written by N. M. Belyaev, we tried to preserve the original text as far as possible.

Mechanics of materials was an important topic in the design and use of Vulcan products. He deals with many of the topics that are featured in the works of his teacher, the Ukrainian Stepan Prokofyevich Timoshenko, whose own works revolutionised the teaching and practice of this topic in the U.S. and elsewhere. Timoshenko occasionally cites Belyaev as a source.