The differential quadrature method is a numerical solution technique for initial and/or boundary problems. It was developed by the late Richard Bellman and his associates in the early 70s and, since then, the technique has been successfully employed in a variety of problems in engineering and physical sciences. The method has been projected by its proponents as a potential alternative to the conventional numerical solution techniques such as the finite difference and finite element methods. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the differential quadrature method, which should be of general interest to the computational mechanics community.

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presentation of its subject which, by having collected in one place a comprehensive assortment of methods and techniques of measurement, will be of value to any person interested in comparing the possibilities and limitations of each. It is most certainly recommended to the audience for which it is written. Mechanics of Composite Materials. By Robert M. Jones. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. 1975. xiv + 355 Pages. Cost $21.00. REVIEWED BY C. W. BERT* With the rapid development of high-performance fibers and their increasing use in critical structural applications, there is a great need for a text which covers the topics peculiar to the mechanics of such structures: micromechanics, macroscopic anisotropy, and flexural-extensional coupling. Professor Jones has drawn from his extensive industrial and pedagogical experience in the relatively new field of composite material mechanics to write a textbook which serves this need very well. The introductory chapter gives an up-to-date overview of the types, terminology, manufacture, current applications, and future potential of composites. Chapter 2 is devoted to macroscopic stiffness and strength behavior of a single layer. Chapter 3 is concerned with micromechanics, i.e., prediction of the composite stiffness and strength behavior from known properties and geometric configuration of its constituent materials (the fibers or other reinforcements and the matrix). Chapter 4 covers laminate mechanics, i.e., prediction of laminate behavior from known properties, arrangement, and orientation of the individual layers. Problems of stable static deflection, static buckling under in-plane loads, and free vibration of laminated, composite-material plates are presented in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 treats briefly the following miscellaneous topics: fatigue, fracture mechanics, effects of holes, transverse shear effects, and environmental effects.

The focus of this review is on the hierarchy of computational models for sandwich plates and shells, predictor-corrector procedures, and the sensitivity of the sandwich response to variations in the different geometric and material parameters. The literature reviewed is devoted to the following application areas: heat transfer problems; thermal and mechanical stresses (including boundary layer and edge stresses); free vibrations and damping; transient dynamic response; bifurcation buckling, local buckling, face-sheet wrinkling and core crimping; large deflection and postbuckling problems; effects of discontinuities (eg, cutouts and stiffeners), and geometric changes (eg, tapered thickness); damage and failure of sandwich structures; experimental studies; optimization and design studies. Over 800 relevant references are cited in this review, and another 559 references are included in a supplemental bibliography for completeness. Extensive numerical results are presented for thermally stressed sandwich panels with composite face sheets showing the effects of variation in their geometric and material parameters on the accuracy of the free vibration response, and the sensitivity coefficients predicted by eight different modeling approaches (based on two-dimensional theories). The standard of comparison is taken to be the analytic three-dimensional thermoelasticity solutions. Some future directions for research on the modeling of sandwich plates and shells are outlined.

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