This course provides the theoretical basis for analyzing simple 2-dimensional structures including trusses, continuous beams, and frames. Both statically determinate and indeterminate systems are considered. Structural elements (beams, columns, braces) can be prismatic or nonprismitic. A variety of external and internal loads are covered, including nodal loads, element loads, temperature changes, and support settlements. Since the ability to compute deflections is an essential ingredient in the analysis of indeterminate structures the principle of virtual work (virtual forces) will be described and exercised in detail before the structural analysis methods are presented. All structures analyzed will assume linear elastic materials and will ignore the influence of deflections on equilibrium.
While the focus of the course is on "hand calculations" approaches, these approaches become impractical for structures with more than four or five elements. For this reason, many of the actual calculations will be performed using Mathcad. The use of commercial structural analysis programs is avoided, but simple educational programs such as Mastan, will be used to confirm the accuracy of the solutions obtained by hand. Additionally, simple approximate validation approaches will be presented