Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures

Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic reference book
Comment: Works great as a reference book for aircraft and spacecraft design classes.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful and Helpful Textbook
Comment:
This is a well written book that aeronautical engineers and particularly those engaged in a serious study of aircraft structures design and analysis will find useful, helpful and handy. The author reinforced his message with numerous examples which should help the reader to grasp the fundamental aircraft design ideas and principles. Although the book has been around for some time (I first used it at university as a recommended text in aircraft design over 25 years ago), the theory and concepts are still very much relevant and applicable today.

For the beginner and expert alike, this book serves as a comprehensive reference on aircraft structural design concepts. I recommend that you buy it, read it and keep it on the shelf where you can easily access it and refer to it for critical insights into aircraft structural design.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Elmer Bruhn Rocks!
Comment:
Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures by Elmer Franklin Bruhn may as well have been written in Latin when I purchased my first copy more than twenty years ago.

While many of the methods in the book have been overshadowed by Finite Element Analysis, they provide valuable insight into the fundamentals of aircraft design and an appreciation for the men and women that designed aircraft before John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry invented the electronic digital computer at Iowa State University.

Today you won't find many aircraft stress analysts using the Moment Distribution (Hardy Cross) Method, Slope Deflection Method, Method of Elastic Weights or the Methods of Dummy Unit-Loads, Area Moments, Virtual Work, Influence Coefficients ... but working on an example in this book is good, clean fun and frustration ... for the "geek" in all of us.

Some of the standard cliches apply to Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures. It is the analyst's "best friend" ... "a classic" ... "finer than frog hair split four ways" ... "the stress analyst's Bible" ... that "kicks [...] and takes names" ... and has "withstood the test of time".

If you like puzzles, you will love this book. It contains more aircraft stress analysis examples than you can solve in one lifetime. Many examples remind me of a combination of crossword puzzle, Jumble and Sodoku .... only more difficult ... and less fun. Examples range in difficulty from elementary ... to more painful than a root canal without Lidocaine done by your mother-in-law before electricity.

The problems are condensed. The book could easily be expanded to a five volume set. I would organize it differently ... but as Marge and Homer Simpson might say, "It's easy to criticize ... and FUN TOO!"

While there are many minor errors or "typos" in the book ... a few worth mentioning are:

Page B1.8 Ramberg Osgood stress-Strain Curve - Add "3/7" before the parentheses to equation (3).

Page C1.9 Octahedral Shear stress Theory - Top equation in right column ... portion in last parentheses should square each term within and not without.

Page C11.17 Average and Maximum stress in Upright or Web Stiffener - Column 1, Section C11.20, fs ... .05 ( 1 - k ) should be 0.50 ( 1 - k ) and the area of the upright should be the effective area of the upright. See NACA TN 2661, page 19, equation (30a).

William F. McCombs of Dallas, Texas has written excellent supplements for Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures. Titles include ... "A Supplement to Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures" and "Engineering Column Analysis - The Analysis of Compression Members".

Dr. Bruhn has taught me more from beyond the grave than I learned cramming five years of college into nine. Many thanks to his family and publisher for keeping this book in print. Also many thanks to Dr. Charles (Ben) Basye, Bill McCombs, Glen Crawford, Keith Francois, Rex Sanger, Bill Merrick and all of the fine folks in Maquoketa, Iowa.

My advice to younger earthlings ... manage a hedge fund, be a stockbroker, or go to medical school. If you insist on punishing yourself and throwing your life away by pursuing a career in aeronautical or aerospace engineering ... if you just can't get enough "chick repellent" ... buy this book.

A lot of subjects are still Greek to me, but in the last thirty years I have learned this much pseudo-Latin ... Illegitimi Non Carborundum.

Mange Takk!

Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic book
Comment: I think every aircraft structures designer should get this book. I have gone through many other books but its unique and the best.

Customer Rating:
Summary: An Aerospace Standard
Comment: In my 16 years in the Aerospace Industry I have rarely come across a more quoted or well known text with the possible exception of Roark's Formulas for stress and Strain. Bruhn is the basis for most Aerospace company strength manuals. It is truly the Bible of flight vehicle analysis.

However, there is no index, only a cursory table of contents. A very good reference for a great deal of practical formulas but abrupt on theoretical explanation in most cases. Many example problems but again very abrupt on explanation. Could have better illustrations.

For all of the above reasons Bruhn gets high marks as a reference but as a text for learning it is lacking; even for someone with a background and education in basic stress analysis. It is still one of the most comprehensive and practical aircraft structural text around and still a must read for any flight vehicle structural engineer.