Fundamentals of Structural Engineering







Audience

The intended audience of this book is that of students majoring in civil engineering

or architecture who have been exposed to the basic concepts of engineering

mechanics and mechanics of materials. The book is sufficiently comprehensive to

be used for both elementary and higher level undergraduate structures subjects.

In addition, it can serve students as a valuable resource as they study for the

engineering certification examination and as a reference later in their careers.

Practicing professionals will also find the book useful for self-study, for review

for the professional registration examination, and as a reference book.

Motivation

The availability of inexpensive digital computers and user-friendly structural

engineering software has revolutionized the practice of structural engineering.

Engineers now routinely employ computer-based procedures throughout the

various phases of the analysis and design detailing processes. As a result, with

these tools engineers can now deal with more complex structures than in the past.

Given that these tools are now essential in engineering practice, the critical question

facing faculty involved in the teaching of structural engineering is “How the

traditional teaching paradigm should be modified for the computer age?” We

believe that more exposure to computer-based analysis is needed at an early stage

in the course development. However, since the phrase “garbage in garbage out” is

especially relevant for computer-based analysis, we also believe that the student

needs to develop, through formal training in analysis methodology, the ability to

estimate qualitatively the behavior of a structure subjected to a given loading and to

confirm qualitative estimates with some simple manual computations.





Preface

Based on a review of the current structural engineering academic literature, it

appears that the current set of undergraduate textbooks are focused mainly on either

(i) teaching manual analysis methods and applying them to simple idealized

structures or (ii) reformulating structural analysis methods in terms of matrix

notation. The first approach is based on the premise that intuition about structural

behavior is developed as one works through the manual computations, which,

at times, may seem exhaustive. The second approach provides the basis for developing

and understanding computer software codes but does not contribute toward

developing intuition about structural behavior.

Clearly there is a need for a text that provides a balanced treatment of both

classical and modern computer-based analysis methods in a seamless way and also

stresses the development of an intuitive understanding of structural behavior.

Engineers reason about behavior using simple models and intuition that they have

acquired through problem-solving experience. The approach adopted in this text is

to develop this type of intuition through computer simulation which allows one to

rapidly explore how the structure responds to changes in geometry and physical

parameters. We believe this approach better prepares the reader for the practice of

structural engineering.







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