Schaum's Outline of Strength of Materials

I obtained this text in an older edition, around 1994. Although I had a college course in strengths, I really learned what I know through using this book and working all the problems. Later I found an even older edition of the Nash book at a used bookstore. I believe the copyright for this was around 1960 +/- 5 years. So it is probably one of the oldest Schaum titles, and it is the one I found most useful in my career in structural engineering and for passing the FE and PE exams. I have not looked at any recent editions, however provided that the editors retained the Nash chapters that use classical methods for calculating axials, shears, moments, deflections and stresses, you WILL learn by going through this carefully and working the problems in the back of each chapter. At some point this book was not available, and only the combined Strengths/Statics book by Nash was offered. I have that also (an early edition) and believe that it is not quite as good as the one devoted solely to strengths (this book.)

This is an excellent book. Very well written and with very explicit examples for a beginner or a pro. The new facts are the programs for some beams, columns and typical elements of strength of materials. The reading is easy and the processes are very simple and the exmaples are very clear.

I found the book to be very useful in that it summarizes my class textbook and offers many worked out example problems. I have since purchased Schaum's for my other classes and I find them equally useful

I have already finished courses in strength of materials etc., and am using this book as a reference, instead of those voluminous handbooks. The book is very well written and William Nash has an excellent, straight forward way of putting forth the key points. The book has all the information you might need for a first course in strength of materials. I also use this book in conjunction with a finite element text to give me the theoretical values for comparison. In summary, if you need a solid backup for your textbook and a useful reference, you won't go wrong with this one.

This book is very good. First year students will find it very user friendly. Even a graduate engineer may need it to brush up previouly learned skills. All topics - e.g. material properties, stress, beam deflection, bending moments, columns, etc. are covered in very lucid manner. A must book for EVERY engineer.