PROCESS PIPING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO ASME B31.3, THIRD EDITION
Charles Becht IV. ASME Press, Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990. 2009. 282 pages. Hardcover. ASME members, $72; list, $90. ISBN-13: 978-0-7918-0286-1.

This third edition of the guide to the ASME B31.3 Process Piping Code provides background information, historical perspective, and expert commentary on requirements for process piping design and construction. The text has been updated to the 2008 edition of the code. The author explains the intentions of the code and covers the content of each of the code’s chapters. The introduction includes a list of principal changes from the previous edition, including new requirements for weld joint strength reduction factors, a discussion of code text added to clarify the intent of some progressive examination requirements, and the like. A list of additional topics includes discussion of ASME research on stress limits for occasional loads at elevated temperatures and additional discussion of requirements for listed components. According to ASME, the guide provides the most extensive coverage of the code available today and also contains additional information useful to those responsible for the design and mechanical integrity of process piping systems. The author is a long-serving member of the ASME B31.3 Process Piping Code Committee and is its current chairman.

POLYMER MELT PROCESSING: FOUNDATIONS IN FLUID MECHANICS AND HEAT TRANSFER
Morton M. Denn. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013. 2008. 256 pages. $99. ISBN 978-0-521-89969-7.

Most of the shaping in the manufacture of polymeric objects is carried out in the melt state, as is a substantial part of the physical property development. Melt processing involves an interplay between fluid mechanics and heat transfer in complex liquids, and taken as a whole it is a good example of the importance of coupled transport processes. This book is about the underlying foundations of polymer melt processing, which can be derived from relatively straightforward ideas in fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Among the subjects covered are extrusion, fiber spinning, viscoelasticity and processing flows, and structured fluids.

DESIGN RELATIONSHIPS: INTEGRATING USER INFORMATION INTO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Adriano Galvao. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller e.K., Dudweiler Landstr. 125 a, D-66123 Saarbrücken. 2007. Softcover. 200 pages. $76. ISBN 978-3-8364-2634-3.

Design Relationships presents a design theory based on affordances, which the author, Adriano Galvao, says “convey desired possibilities a product should appear to offer based on its functions.” The text is a revised edition of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, which he defended in 2006. In his introduction Galvao lays out the problem that developers face: Products are becoming increasingly complex and demand more of consumers who use them, but there are few methods for applying users’ requirements in the early stages of product design. It is his goal in the book, he writes, “to develop methods and decision tools that incorporate a user-centered perspective into product development.” The text includes discussions of research and approaches to data. Appendices include sample questionnaires for gathering information on how people use various products. Before he defended his dissertation, Galvao distinguished himself in the subject area when a paper that he wrote with a colleague, K. Sato, won the Xerox-ASME Best Paper Award at the 2005 Design Theory and Methodology Conference. The idea of designing for affordances, a concept borrowed from psychology, was introduced to Mechanical Engineering in a September 2008 article by Jonathan Maier of Clemson University. Maier was one of those who recommended Galvao’s paper for the prize in 2005.

PLATE HEAT EXCHANGERS: DESIGN, APPLICATIONS AND PERFORMANCE
L. Wang, B. Sundén, and R.M. Manglik. WIT Press, c/o Computational Mechanics Inc., 25 Bridge St., Bille-rica, MA 01821. 2007. 288 pages. $190. ISBN 978-1-85312-737-3.

Heat exchangers are important, and used frequently in the processing, heat and power, air conditioning and refrigeration, heat recovery, transportation, and manufacturing industries. Such equipment is also important in cooling electronics and for environmental issues like thermal pollution, waste disposal, and sustainable development. This book provides a general introduction and historical background to plate heat exchangers, then discusses construction and operation, and gives examples of PHEs in different application areas. Material issues (plates, gaskets, brazing materials) and manufacturing methods are also treated. The major part of the book concerns the basic design methods for both single-phase and two-phase flow cases.

W.T. KOITER’S ELASTIC STABILITY OF SOLIDS AND STRUCTURES
Arnold M.A. van der Heijden. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013. 2008. 234 pages. $85. ISBN 978-0-521-51528-3.

This book deals with the elastic stability of solids and structures, for which Warner Koiter was the world’s leading expert of his time, according to the author. It begins with fundamental aspects of stability, relating the basic notions of dynamic stability to more traditional quasistatic approaches. The book is concerned not only with buckling, or linear instability, but particularly with nonlinear postbuckling behavior and imperfection sensitivity. After laying out the general theory, Koiter applies the theory to a number of applications, with a chapter devoted to each. These include a variety of beam, plate, and shell structural problems and some basic continuum elasticity problems. Koiter’s classic results on the nonlinear buckling and imperfection sensitivity of cylindrical and spherical shells are included.

HYBRID VEHICLES AND THE FUTURE OF PERSONAL TRANSPORTATION
Allen E. Fuhs. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway, NW, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742. 2009. Softcover. 502 pages. $79.95. ISBN 978-1-4200-7534-2.

Some day not far off, according to Allen Fuhs, there will be 1 billion cars in service around the globe. “Driving a car is fun, but the cumulative consequences of 1,000,000,000 cars on the road are serious,” he writes in the preface to Hybrid Vehicles. According to Fuhs, the book is addressed to the general public, including car buyers, and “provides reasons why or why not to buy hybrids.” He believes the text can give engineers a starting point for further research. The author describes his presentation as similar to that of the magazine Scientific American. Portions of the text are laced with equations, but Fuhs has attempted to make the book intelligible to those who skip them. Topics include a history of hybrid and other vehicles, including early electrics; a discussion of petroleum reserves, and different types of modern hybrids. He even discusses why solar-powered cars are probably impractical with available technology: The panels would have to be the size of a two-door garage door and be kept very clean, and even then they would only be really up to the job on bright days.