Open@VT

New Open Textbook: Aerospace Structures by Eric Raymond Johnson

by Anita Walz, posted on March 31, 2022

Virginia Tech’s Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering and Virginia Tech Publishing are pleased to announce publication of a new open textbook by Eric Raymond Johnson, Ph.D., titled, Aerospace Structures.

Aerospace Structures (https://doi.org/10.21061/AerospaceStructures) is a 600+ page text and reference book for junior, senior, and graduate-level aerospace engineering students.

The text begins with a discussion of the aerodynamic and inertia loads acting on aircraft in symmetric flight and presents a linear theory for the statics and dynamic response of thin-walled straight bars with closed and open cross-sections. Isotropic and fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials including temperature effects are modeled with Hooke’s law. Methods of analyses are by differential equations, Castigliano’s theorems, the direct stiffness method, the finite element method, and Lagrange’s equations. There are numerous examples for the response of axial bars, beams, coplanar trusses, coplanar frames, and coplanar curved bars. Failure initiation by the von Mises yield criterion, buckling, wing divergence, fracture, and by Puck’s criterion for FRP composites are presented in the examples.

Problem sets related to this book are available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/104169.

Instructors interested in receiving notification of additional file types (LaTeX, ePub, print), or reviewing, adopting, or adapting parts or the whole of the text are requested to register their interest at: http://bit.ly/interest-aerospace-structures

Table of Contents

1. Function of Flight Vehicle Structural Members
2. Aircraft Loads
3. Elements of Thin-Walled Bar Theory
4. Some Aspects of the Structural Analysis
5. Work and Energy Methods
6. Applications of Castigliano’s Theorems
7. Arches, Rings, and Fuselage Frames
8. Laminated Bars of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites
9. Failure Initiation in FRP Compositives
10. Structural Stability of Discrete Conservative Systems
11. Buckling of Columns and Plates
12. Introduction to Aeroelasticity
13. Fracture of Cracked Members
14. Design of a Landing Strut and Wing Spar
15. Direct Stiffness Method
16. Applications of the Direct Stiffness Method
17. Finite Element Method
18. Introduction to Flexible Body Dynamics
19. Appendix A: Linear Elasticity of Solid Bodies

Free Access to Aerospace Structures

• High and low-resolution PDF versions of this book and additional information are freely available at: https://doi.org/10.21061/AerospaceStructures.
• LaTeX sourcefiles and an ePub version will be shared at https://doi.org/10.21061/AerospaceStructures when finalized.
• A print version is forthcoming in April 2022.
• The book is also listed in the Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, VIVA Open, and Merlot.

Acknowledgments

The peer-reviewed work is made possible in part by financial and in-kind contributions from the Open Education Initiative at Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech Publishing, and VIVA – the Virtual Library of Virginia. Virginia Tech open textbook titles are hosted in VTechWorks and listed as Virginia Tech Open Education Initiative projects. 

Peer reviewers
Joseph Brooks, Doctoral Student and Graduate Assistant, Virginia Tech
Christine Gilbert, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech
Mayuresh Patil, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech / Professor of Practice, Georgia Tech
Varakini Sanmugadas, Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant, Virginia Tech
Gary Seidel, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech
Namiko Yamamoto, Assistant Professor, Penn State
Anonymous, Professor, University of Virginia

Contributors
Co-investigators: Mayuresh Patil, Rakesh Kapania
Managing editor and co-investigator: Anita Walz
Alt text writer: Joseph Brooks
Alt text assistant: Claire Colvin
Cover design and selected graphics: Kindred Grey

Suggested citation: 
Johnson, Eric R. (2022) Aerospace Structures. Blacksburg: Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering.https://doi.org/10.21061/AerospaceStructures. Licensed with CC BY NC-SA 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

Unless otherwise noted, this work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY NC SA) 4.0 license which allows adaptation and redistribution with attribution for uses which are not primarily commercial. See the license terms and best practices for attribution for additional information.

About the Author
Eric Raymond Johnson is emeritus professor of aerospace and ocean engineering at Virginia Tech. He earned his doctoral degree in applied mechanics from the University of Michigan in 1976, and from 1976 to 2003 was a member of the engineering faculty at Virginia Tech. Dr. Johnson s research area is composite structures. Research activities include the mechanics of the response and failure of advanced composite material structures with applications to flight and land vehicles, buckling and post-buckling of plates and shells, progressive failure analysis for the prediction of energy absorption in laminated composites and in bonded joints, and fracture mechanics. He has sixty-four publications in structural mechanics, and has been awarded research funding from government agencies and industries.. He is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.