With all due respect to the Beach Boys and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, not all vibrations are good. In fact, almost every machine or structure vibrates at some level—from small electronics to aerospace structures.
“Most of the time, the resulting vibration is annoying,” said University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering faculty member Dan Inman, the Harm Buning Collegiate Professor. “And many times, it is destructive.”
An expert in energy harvesting, structural health monitoring, vibration suppression and morphing, Inman is the author of Engineering Vibration, the leading textbook on how to analyze and design against harmful vibrations. In July, Pearson Publishing released the fifth edition of this classic book.
“Likely most significant, the book can be rented for the semester in digital form, greatly reducing the cost to students,” Inman said, while a print version is also available for purchase.
Since the first edition was published in 1994, Inman estimates that hundreds, if not thousands of undergraduate students in engineering mechanics and aerospace, mechanical, and civil engineering have used the book for introductory courses in vibrations or structural dynamics. He’s aware of more than 30 universities worldwide whose faculty have adopted the book for such courses, including Stanford, Villanova, Michigan Tech, University of Colorado, and of course U-M.
An earlier edition was also translated into Korean and almost all universities in South Korea use his book, Inman said.
According to Pearson Publishing, Engineering Vibration connects traditional design-oriented topics, an introduction of modal analysis, and the use of computational codes with MATLAB®. Inman provides an unequaled combination of the study of traditional vibration topics with additional topics on design, measurement, and computation to help students develop a dynamic understanding of vibration phenomena and connect theory to practice.
“Engineering Vibration was the very first book in this field to incorporate the use of math software for analysis and computation,” Inman said, noting that most competing books have since added a computer code component.
In the textbook industry, it’s uncommon for a book to remain a best seller over several decades. Inman’s success involves hiring knowledgeable undergraduates—students who have the prerequisite course but who haven’t taken his class yet—to read the text of each new edition and point out things they don’t understand.
Engineering Vibration was the very first book in this field to incorporate the use of math software for analysis and computation.
DAN INMAN, Harm Buning Collegiate Professor, Professor of Aerospace Engineering
“Writing books has been a long-standing hobby,” Inman said. “This one was particularly fun because it has been so well received.”
