Book excerpt: Almost all welding technology depends upon the use of concentrated energy sources to fuse or soften the material locally at the joint, before such energy can be diffused or dispersed elsewhere. Although comprehensive treatments of transient heat flow as a controlling influence have been developed progressively and published over the past forty years, the task of uniting the results compactly within a textbook has become increasingly formidable. With the comparative scarcity of such works, welding engineers have been denied the full use of powerful design analysis tools. During the past decade Dr Radaj has prepared to fulfil this need, working from a rich experience as pioneer researcher and teacher, co-operator with Professor Argyris at Stuttgart University in developing the finite element method for stress analysis of aircraft and power plant structures, and more recently as expert consultant on these and automotive structures at Daimler Benz. His book appeared in 1988 in the German language, and this updated English language edition will significantly increase the availability of the work.