The paper, summarizing studies presented in seven journal papers using the method of continuous analysis, is written to honor Professor Y.H. Pao of the Institute of Applied Mechanics at the National Taiwan University on his seventieth birthday for his many significant contributions and leadership in the field of mechanics. These seven papers contain investigations concerning stress, buckling, and vibration analyses of beams and plates having disbonds. The authors feel privileged to have this opportunity to join with Professor Pao's many friends, colleagues and students to participate in this joyous occasion. Being able to appear in this prestigious special issue of the Chinese Journal of Mechanics, the authors believe that the spread of each of the seven papers in the structural mechanics community must at least be increased by ten fold. Hence, the numbering of the reference papers is amplified by a factor of ten which amounts to a total number of seventy as being used in the listing of papers under References. We use this number of seventy to wish Professor Y.H. Pao to have many happy returns on his seventieth birthday.

In this paper we introduce a fundamentally new concept in the field of wave-propagation in periodic structures. We show that a phenomenal amount of simplification can be achieved by using symmetry arguments. Problems which ordinarily lead to (2n × 2n) determinantal eigenvalue equations, can effectively be reduced to two (n × n) determinantal equations. We state the final result in the form of a factorization theorem and then with the help of a simple problem, we show the superiority of this new result over the traditional methods of solution.

Band-limited acoustic sources of small spatial extent produce radiation patterns well approximated by those of multi-poles. Assumed limits on dimensionless size Ka and source efficiency lead to explicit rules for the necessary length of the multi-pole series.

The stress distribution in a shrink fit with solid inclusion subject to homogeneous heating and subsequent cooling is investigated. It is presumed that both components are in a state of plane stress and exhibit the same elastic-plastic material behavior. Based on Tresca's yield condition and the associated flow rule, the modification of the stress distribution is studied analytically. In particular, the reduction of the interface pressure — and therefore of the transferable moment — caused by the occurrence of plastic deformation is discussed, and the criteria for the avoidance of yielding of the inclusion or full plasticization of the hub are given.

It is shown that when the thermodynamic fluxes are included as independent thermodynamic state variables of the generalized entropy density, the constitutive equations for the conserved state variables and the evolution equations for the nonconserved state variables of elastic type-II superconductors can be derived systematically. In particular, the transport equations generalizing the Fourier law for heat transport and the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation for the relaxation of superelectron are proposed in this paper.

Based on a landmark paper by Pao and Gajewski, some novel developments of the method of generalized ray integrals are discussed. The expansion of the dynamic Green's function of the infinite space into plane waves allows benchmark 3-D solutions in the layered half-space and even enters the background formulation of elastic-viscoplastic wave propagation. New developments of software of combined symbolic-numerical manipulation and parallel computing make the method a competitive solution technique.

During the last decade, we have applied MEMS-based transducers to develop a technology for maneuvering aircraft by sensing and controlling the separation around the leading edge of a delta wing. In this paper, we will summarize our experience of this endeavor.