Rules of Thumb for Steel Design
In earlier times when computers were neither available nor essential, one
objective of the structural design process was to discover a computational method,
which was elegant, simple and appropriately accurate. When such a process was
identified it was recorded as an expedient approach to solving a recurring structural
design problem. Thus, quick “Rules of Thumb” became essential resources for the
structural engineer. As computer software has proliferated, become very comprehensive,
and been made very user friendly, the importance of “Rules of Thumb” and approximate
methods has been diminished. It has been argued that, with the computational speed
and ease of application of computer methods, the need for approximations and
“Rules of Thumb” no longer exists.
Download
*