Due to its easy writing style, this is the most accessible book on the market. It provides comprehensive coverage of both plates and shells and a unique blend of modern analytical and computer-oriented numerical methods in presenting stress analysis in a realistic setting. Distinguished by its broad range of exceptional visual interpretations of the solutions, applications, and means by which loads are carried in beams, plates and shells. Combining the modern-numerical, mechanics of materials, and theory of elasticity methods of analysis, it provides an in-depth and complete coverage of the subject, not explored by other texts. Its flexible organization allows instructors to more easily pick and choose topics they want to cover, depending on their course needs. Students are exposed to both the theory and the latest applications to various structural elements. Two new chapters on the fundamentals provide a stronger foundation for understanding the material. An increased emphasis on computer tools, and updated problems, examples, and references, expose students to the latest information in the field.