COMPANION GUIDE TO THE ASME BOILER AND PRESSURE VESSEL CODE, THIRD EDITION
K.R. Rao, editor. ASME Press, Three Park Ave., New York, NY 10016-5990. 2009. In three volumes, 2,400 pages. $528 member, $660 list. ISBN: 978-0-7918-0268-7.

This edition of the Companion Guide has been updated to conform to the latest edition (2007) of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. The editor, an ASME Fellow, has assembled the contributions of more than 100 authors into three volumes. Volume 1 covers ASME Code Sections I through VII, and the B31.1 and B31.3 Piping Codes. Volume 2 has chapters addressing Code Sections VIII through XI. ASME Code Section VIII, Division 2 was completely rewritten to make the code more accessible to those who would use it and to reflect advances in technology. The introduction to that chapter discusses those and other changes in the way the code was written—using contractors, for instance, to supplement volunteer committees. Volume 3 addresses Code Section XII and issues related to the success of current and next generation of nuclear reactors, including license renewal, public safety, and probabilistic risk assessment. Volume 3 also contains chapters discussing codes and issues from the perspective of different countries around the world with nuclear reactors or nuclear-related industry.

THE ART OF MECHANICAL DRAWING: A PRACTICAL COURSE FOR DRAFTING AND DESIGN
William F. Willard. Hearst Books, a division of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc., 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. 2009. 176 pages. $9.95. ISBN: 978-1-58816-759-0.

This is a reissue of a book originally published by Popular Mechanics in 1912, and the editors are pitching it as more than a nostalgia piece. Hand drafting has been replaced by computers, which are faster. But pen-and-paper drawing can give an engineer insight into the computer’s output. Besides, there is a tactile pleasure in hand drawing. The text begins with the basics of identifying equipment and providing geometric exercises and proceeds to detailed working drawings and isometric working drawings. It ends with “A Suggested Course for Young Draftsmen,” which poses exercises that require the skills taught in the book.

QUALITY AND RELIABILITY IN ENGINEERING
Tirupathi R. Chandrupatla. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013. 2009. 326 pages. $110. ISBN 978-0-521-51522-1.

The author, a professor and Founding Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Rowan University in New Jersey, tells us in his preface that he developed the material for Quality and Reliability in Engineering during 10 years of teaching a junior-year course in the subject. “The underlying philosophy of the book,” Tirupathi Chandrupatla writes, “is that a quality product results from the specification of quality at the design stage; measurement, monitoring, and control of quality at the production stage; and quality performance at the final stage.” In his opening chapter, “Quality Concepts,” the author observes, for instance, that definitions of quality are hard to pin down in an objective manner, but many different definitions share common points: “consistency of conformance and performance, and keeping the customer in mind.” Other chapters are “Tolerances and Fits,” “Geometric Tolerances,” “Acceptance Sampling,” and “Experimental Design.” Chandrupatla recommends the work as a text-book in quality and reliability for upper-level undergraduates in mechanical engineering and for others studying manufacturing and industrial engineering. He suggests that it can also serve in capstone design courses. An appendix provides statistical tables. A CD included with the book contains the same tables and active programs.

MATERIALS ENABLED DESIGNS: THE MATERIALS ENGINEERING PERSPECTIVE TO PRODUCT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING
Michael Pfeifer. Butterworth-Heinemann, an imprint of Elsevier, 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803. 2009. 320 pages. $69.95. ISBN: 978-0-7506-8287-9.

Michael Pfeifer is president of Industrial Metallurgists LLC, a materials engineering firm in Northbrook, Ill. He also teaches a course at Northwestern University, and this book grew out of that experience. According to Pfeifer, “As I assembled the reading material for the class, I found that there were no texts that addressed product development and manufacturing from the materials engineering perspective.” The materials perspective involves three considerations: That performance, reliability, and cost of a product depend on its materials; that proper selection of materials is crucial to meeting those criteria; and controlling variation in materials allows for product consistency. Chapters address such subjects as material properties, manufacturing process considerations, degradation of materials, and detail design and testing.

VISCOELASTIC WAVES IN LAYERED MEDIA
Roger D. Borcherdt. Cambridge University Press, 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013. 2009. 320 pages. $140. ISBN: 978-0-521-89853-9.

According to the author, this text “provides analytic solutions and numerical results for fundamental wave-propagation problems in arbitrary linear viscoelastic media not published previously in a book.” The book covers the theory of monochromatic wave propagation in more than one dimension, as it has developed over the past 30 to 40 years. It is intended to serve as a teaching text for graduate or upper-division courses and as a reference text for those interested in wave propagation in layered media. Ten chapters address such subjects as “One-Dimensional Viscoelasticity,” “Three-Dimensional Viscoelasticity,” “Numerical Models for General Waves Reflected and Refracted at Viscoelastic Boundaries,” and “Rayleigh-Type Surface Wave on a Viscoelastic Half Space.” Chapter 11 contains additional mathematical information in six appendices. The author is a research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey and a consulting professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.

DEFORMATION THEORY OF PLASTICITY
Robert M. Jones. Bull Ridge Publishing, Box 10698. Blacksburg, Va., 24062-0698. 2009.  640 pages. Hardcover. $120. ISBN 978-0-9787223-1-9.

A professor emeritus of engineering science and mechanics at Virginia Tech, Jones is an ASME Fellow and an expert on buckling, nonlinear stress-strain behavior, and composite materials. That expertise is on display in this textbook, which covers stretching, yielding, and buckling in a comprehensive variety of shapes and materials. Of particular interest is the extensive chapter near the end on nonclassical plasticity, which helps students learn to deal with the behavior of fiber-reinforced and composite materials; the laminates and solid bodies made of orthotropic materials which are studied are increasingly found in real-world applications. Jones does an admirable job of identifying the engineers and scientists responsible for advances in the field. He even includes small photos of these luminaries throughout the text.