General notions and principles

Abstract

The purpose of the chapter is to introduce and explain all general concepts and principles of thermo-mechanics which are common to all problems we are going to study throughout the book. We use the term “general” in order to underline the fact that these notions and rules are independent of such characteristic features of specific structural mechanics problems as the shape of the structure, the form of external agencies acting on it, materials the structure is made of as well as constraints imposed on possible deformations of the structure. The notions and principles developed in this chapter lead to a system of resulting relations which constitute the physical basis for all the problems of structural mechanics to be subsequently considered.