Excerpts from the Reviews of the e-book on Fracture Mechanics

...The electronic age continues to reinvent itself. Here, we have something new....

....It attempts, and succeeds in many ways, to capture the classroom experience.....

....There are very nice photographs for each of the mechanisms.....

.....At least four experimental methods are presented with excellent photographs and diagrams....

.....The concept of damage tolerance is presented........

.....With some of the slides, there is a link to further information which is, indeed, helpful....

.....incorporation of many of the interesting slides in this e-book would certainly augment any advanced undergraduate or graduate course on the subject of fracture mechanics.....

...Tremendous effort and planning have gone into the development of this first ever e-book on engineering fracture mechanics (e-EFM) to enjoy learning and teaching through generous use of pictures, tables, graphs and animations...

...e-EFM begins with a historical overview of major brittle fracture calamities pertaining to ships, aircraft, tanks and bridges. Other examples of failure of components like shaft, bolt, rail etc. highlight fundamental fracture modes and mechanisms...

...Captivating photoelastic illustrations constitute a vivid part of the teaching and learning theme throughout this e-book. Professor Ramesh has taken full advantage of his experience and expertise in photoelasticity to emphasize basic principles underlying fracture mechanics. This approach will certainly stimulate students to embrace experimental research...

...Photoelasticity furnishes a rapid means for appraising elastic stress fields dominated by the crack tip singularity. Characterizing stress fields and quantifying mixed mode stress intensity factors become enormously simplified through photoelasticity. It is for this primary reason that the photoelastic technique pioneered the growth of experimental fracture mechanics...

...The glorious spirit of educating engineers began with Timoshenko whose texts have become evergreen classics in classrooms across the world. His book on elasticity introduced the photoelastic technique which was perfected further by his student Frocht whose student Srinath spurred the growth of experimental mechanics in India by creating centres of excellence at Kanpur, Bangalore and Chennai, and authored many books to inspire generations of students like Ramesh, who coincidentally, has worked at Kanpur, Bangalore and Chennai. This great tradition of teaching and training students through books continues with Ramesh whose book on Digital Photoelasticity has become a standard international reference...

...I congratulate the author and IIT Madras authorities for initiating a new trend in technical education...

...It has been a pleasure for me to file this report on Science Day 2007 with the hope that more will come out of IIT Madras e-books initiative (meaning aesthetic books with beautiful isochromatics as in e-EFM!!)...

...The author has craftily exploited the potential of the electronic media with excellent animation, attractive colour sketches, many photographs of failed specimens...

The various strong points of the book are:
• Structure is extremely friendly; it takes almost no time to learn it.
• Visuals, still and video, are superbly presented. They help in understanding the sophisticated concepts of Fracture Mechanics with singularities and 3-D stress field around a crack tip. A teacher will find them very handy in projecting through a multimedia projector in a class room.
• Very comprehensive coverage in an introductory book on Fracture Mechanics.
• The fundamentals and basics of mechanics required to develop the fracture mechanics are covered in detail. The user need not go to consult books on mechanics.
• The layout of the material of each slide is unambiguous, direct and readable.
• The font sizes used in presenting the text are appropriate. The colours chosen for the text is pleasant to the eyes.
• There is a novelty in this book. Photoelasticity with excellent photographs of experimental observation is used extensively to make a reader aware that the theory predicts the results correctly.
• The technical material is correct throughout the book.