| dc.description.abstract | The theory of statics of structures has developed from intuition via gradual
refinement to its current state, where the basic principles are put into a
systematic framework that enables precise analysis. Although the basic laws
governing statics of structures have been known for several centuries, the
methods of analysis have developed considerably over the last decades. At
the current state of this development an introductory book on statics should
aim at the dual goal of providing sufficient background for developing an
intuitive understanding of structures, and at the same time lay a solid foundation
for modern analysis, typically made by computational techniques. In
this vein the present book makes extensive use of simple but realistic examples
to develop familiarity and understanding of how structures carry and
distribute the loads through the structural members to the supports. This is
then supplemented by a few simple computer programs that illustrate, how
the theories for trusses and frames are implemented, and open up to a more
general approach to computational mechanics as a natural extension of the
present book.
The book is organized as follows. The first five chapters build up a basic
understanding of the statics of structures. It starts with force systems and
reactions in Chapter 1, then proceeding to the intuitively very accessible
theory of trusses, first analyzed by hand calculation procedures and then
reformulated as a small systematic finite element program MiniTruss in
Chapter 2. Chapter 3 develops the statics of beams and introduces the concept
of internal forces. The internal forces are then related to deformation
mechanisms of curvature, shear and extension in Chapter 4, and the principle
of virtual work is developed in a concise form and used for calculation
of specific displacements. The introductory part is rounded off in Chapter 5
on the analysis of columns, describing instability as a bifurcation problem,
solved by eigenvalue analysis, and design principles based on the existence of
a characteristic imperfection. This part of the book covers material suitable
for an introductory one-semester course on basic statics of structures. | en_US |
