ABSTRACT
With reference to the introduction to this book, the methods of Chapter 1 pertain more to discrete-type microstructures shown in Figure 1.1(a) than continuous ones of Figure 1.1(b) of the Preface. Therefore, in this chapter, we move to random processes and fields having continuous realizations. The material is laid out as a general guide for students of mechanics and materials, who have no particular background in stochastics. Depending on the application, one may have to go well beyond a particular section of random processes or random fields that are sketched here. The objective of our presentation is not rigor, but communicating the gist of multifarious concepts and models of stochastics such as stationarity, ergodicity, and entropy. To that end, some example problems in stochastic mechanics involving random processes and fields are discussed in Sections 2.2 and 2.4.
