Book excerpt: later versions. In addition, the CD-ROM contains a complete solutions manual that includes detailed solutions to all the problems in the book. If the reader does not wish to consult these solutions, then a brief list of answers is provided in printed form at the end of the book. Iwouldliketothankmyfamilymembersfortheirhelpandcontinuedsupportwi- out which this book would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge the help of the editior at Springer-Verlag (Dr. Thomas Ditzinger) for his assistance in bringing this book out in its present form. Finally, I would like to thank my brother, Nicola, for preparing most of the line drawings in both editions. In this edition, I am providing two email addresses for my readers to contact me (pkattan@tedata. net. jo and pkattan@lsu. edu). The old email address that appeared in the ?rst edition was cancelled in 2004. December 2006 Peter I. Kattan PrefacetotheFirstEdition 3 This is a book for people who love ?nite elements and MATLAB . We will use the popular computer package MATLAB as a matrix calculator for doing ?nite element analysis. Problems will be solved mainly using MATLAB to carry out the tedious and lengthy matrix calculations in addition to some manual manipulations especially when applying the boundary conditions. In particular the steps of the ?nite element method are emphasized in this book. The reader will not ?nd ready-made MATLAB programsforuseasblackboxes. Insteadstep-by-stepsolutionsof?niteelementpr- lems are examined in detail using MATLAB.