This volume contains the Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Applied Mechanics, held at Stanford University on August 26 to 31, 1968. The Congress was organized by the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; members of the IUTAM Congress Committee and Bureau are listed under Congress Organization. The members of the Stanford Organizing Committee, which was responsible for the detailed organization of the Congress, are also given, as are the names of the sponsors and the industrial and educational organizations that contributed so generously to the financial support of the meeting. Those attending the Congress came from 32 countries and totaled 1337 persons, plus wives and children. A list of the registered participants is included in the volume. The technical sessions of the Congress comprised four General Lectures and 281 contributed papers, the latter being presented in groups of five simultaneous sessions. The final choice of the contributed papers was made on the basis of abstracts by an International Papers Commit­ tee of IUTAM consülting of G. K. BATCHELOR, E. BECKER, N. J. HOFF, and W. T. KOlTER.