The Elements of Mechanical Design
James G. Skakoon. ASME Press, Three Park Ave., New York, NY 10016-5990. 2008. Softcover. 104 pages. ASME members, $22; retail, $28. ISBN 978-0-7918-0267-0.

From one of the authors of The Unwritten Laws of Engineering and The Unwritten Laws of Business, this concise book is a primer or refresher for professionals interested in the basic principles and practices of good mechanical design. Here, the author uses his own experience, along with input from other expert designers, to explicitly state design principles and practices. Readers will not have to discover these principles on their own and will be able to apply these fundamental concepts throughout their designs. The volume has three parts: Elementary Rules of Mechanical Design, Essentials of Thought and Procedure in Mechanical Design, and Some Practical Advice. It includes numerous exploded drawings and graphs.

A First Course in Finite Elements
Jacob Fish and Ted Belytschko. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774. 2007. Softcover. 322 pages. $65. ISBN 978-0-470-03580-1.

Developed from the authors' combined total of 50 years of teaching experience, this book presents the finite element method formulated as a general purpose numerical procedure for solving engineering problems, governed by partial differential equations. The authors focus on the formulation and application of the finite element method through the integration of finite element theory, code development, and software application. The book adopts a generic approach to the subject and is not application-specific. In conjunction with a Web-based chapter, it integrates code development, theory, and application in one volume.

Heat Transfer in Food Processing
S. Yanniotis and B. Sundén, Editors. WIT Press, c/o Computational Mechanics, 25 Bridge St., Billerica, MA 01821. Published in Southampton, U.K. 2007. 288 pages. $185. ISBN 978-1-85312-932-2.

Heat transfer is one of the most important and most common engineering disciplines in food processing. According to the publisher, there are many unit operations in the food industry where steady or unsteady state heat transfer is taking place. These operations are of primary importance and affect the design of equipment, as well as safety, nutrition, and sensory aspects of the product. The chapters in this book deal mainly with heat transfer applications; methods that have considerable physical property variations with temperature; methods not yet widely spread in the food industry, or methods that are less developed in food engineering literature. There is a separate chapter on the application of numerical methods as well as emphasis in almost every chapter. Also covered are artificial neural networks, an alternative tool for modeling or optimization in cases where a clear relationship between the variables is not known.

Introduction to Mechatronics
Appuu Kuttan. Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016-4308. 2007. Softcover. 334 pages. $39.50. ISBN 0-19-568781-7.

This book is designed to serve as a text for undergraduate and graduate students in the mechanical, electronics, and electrical engineering fields. It covers the fundamental principles of mechatronics and their applications. The author, an ME professor at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India, discusses control systems, actuators, servomotors, sensors, numerical control machines, and intelligent systems. The author discusses a few subfields of mechatronics, such as autotronics, bionics, and avionics, which are the subjects of exceptional research and development activity. Among the features are case studies of slip casting for ceramic products and pick-and-place robots.

Rules of Thumb for Maintenance and Reliability Engineers
Ricky Smith and R. Keith Mobley. Butterworth-Heinemann, an Elsevier imprint, 30 Corporate Dr., Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803. 2008. Softcover. 322 pages. $95. ISBN 978-0-7506-7862-9.

Focusing on a predictive maintenance theme, this book is meant to serve as a convenient guide to best practices in maintaining machinery and systems assets. Authors Ricky Smith and R. Keith Mobley cover the most important factors that affect successful maintenance programs and the keys to ensuring that manufacturing systems perform reliably over time. They describe how to create and nurture a work culture that values predictive maintenance over reactive maintenance. Also covered are the common technologies for performing predictive maintenance analyses, including vibration analysis, thermography, tribology analysis, and ultrasonics analysis. There are also forms, checklists, and tips for creating maintenance schedules, inspections, and tests.

Fundamentals of Test Measurement Instrumentation
Keith R. Cheatle. ISA-Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, 67 Alexander Dr., P.O. Box 12277, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. 2006. Softcover. 332 pages. Members, $85; retail, $99. ISBN 1-55617-914-6.

Targeted at engineers, technicians, manufacturers, and students, this book discusses the specialized test instrumentation used in research and development laboratories, testing organizations, and industrial maintenance departments. It focuses on the practical application of test instrumentation and covers the importance of creating a measurement system that involves components, installation, wiring, and calibration. Design, application, and calibration of systems for measuring pressure, temperature, flow, force, displacement, and vibration are also covered. Emphasis is placed on the calibration of test equipment, including detailed information about calibration equipment, methods, and records.

Polymer Engineering Science and Viscoelasticity: An Introduction
Hal F. Brinson and L. Catherine Brinson. Springer Science + Business Media, 233 Spring St., New York, NY 10013. 2008. 450 pages. $119. ISBN 978-0-387-73860-4.

This book provides an overview suited to cross-disciplinary engineers and scientists who need to understand the basic background of polymeric behavior to rigorous mechanics approaches to the design of structures made with polymer-based materials. The authors present a unified mechanics and materials perspective on polymers: both the mathematics of viscoelastic theory and the physical mechanisms behind polymer deformation processes. This text covers the viscoelastic characterization of polymers, including constitutive modeling, experimental methods, thermal response and stress, and failure analysis.