L.A. Galin’s book on contact problems is a remarkable work. Actually there are two books: the first, published in 1953 deals with contact problems in the classical theory of elasticity; this is the one that was translated into English in 1961. The second book, published in 1980, included the first, and then had new sections on contact problems for viscoelastic materials, and rough contact problems; this section has not previously been translated into English. In this new translation, the original text and the mathematical analysis have been completely revised, new material has been added, and the material appearing in the 1980 Russian translation has been completely rewritten. In addition there are three essays by students of Galin, bringing the analysis up to date.

This book contains 24 papers presented at the symposium on “Recent Advances in Mechanics” dedicated to the late Professor – Academician Pericles S. Theocaris in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of his death. The papers are written by world renowned and recognized experts in their fields and serve as a reference and guide for future research. The topics covered in the book can be divided into three major themes: Mathematical methods in applied mechanics (nine papers), experimental mechanics (nine papers) and fracture mechanics (six papers). Topics covered include: Application of reciprocity relations to laser-based ultrasonics, boundary value problems of the theory of elasticity, optimal design in contact mechanics, scaling of strength and lifetime distributions of quasibrittle structures, directional distortional hardening in plasticity, vibration of systems, instability phenomena in damped systems, variational methods for static and dynamic elasticity problems, an accelerated Newmark scheme for solving the equations of motion in the time domain, photoelastic tomography, electronic speckle pattern interferometry, composites exposed to fire, sampling moiré, microelecromechanical systems, experimental mechanics in nano-scale, advanced cement based nanocomposites, piezonuclear transmutations in brittle rocks under mechanical loading, stress triaxiality at crack tips studied by caustics, reinforcement of a cracked elastic plate with defects, some actual problems of fracture mechanics, cyclic plasticity with applications to extremely low cycle fatigue of structural steel, and fracture of a highly filled polymer composite.

Numerous practical problems connected to triboelectric phenomena remain unsolved in both the fabrication and behavior of polymer threads and fabrics in a variety of industrial articles. Using the results of unique experiments carried out in the countries of the former Soviet Union, this volume fills a gap in the science of tribology, presenting fundamental information on the nature of physical and chemical processes governing and accompanying tribodeformation and tribodisintegration of polymers. Details on electrophysical phenomena such as contact electrification and emergence of the electret state in polymer materials are also provided.