Fundamentals of Structural Engineering PDF

Part I Statically Determinate Structures

• Introduction to Structural Engineering
• Statically Determinate Truss Structures
• Statically Determinate Beams
• Statically Determinate Plane Frames
•  Cable Structures
•  Statically Determinate Curved Members
• Shallow Foundations
• Vertical Retaining Wall Structures

Part II Statically Indeterminate Structures

• The Force Method
• The Displacement Method
• Approximate Methods for Estimating Forces in Statically Indeterminate Structures
• Finite Element Displacement Method for Framed Structures

Part III Practice of Structural Engineering

• Multi-span Horizontal Structures
• Lateral Load Issues for Buildings
• Vertical Loads on Multistory Buildings

Preface to Fundamentals of Structural Engineering PDF

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 teaching 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.

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 work 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 to developing intuition about structural behavior.

Clearly there is a need for a text that provides a balanced treatment of classical and modern computer-based analysis methods seamlessly and 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 structural engineering practice.

Organization Fundamentals of Structural Engineering PDF

We have organized this text into three parts. Parts I and II are intended to provide the student with the necessary computational tools and also to develop an understanding of structural behavior by covering analysis methodologies, ranging from traditional classical methods through computer-based methods, for skeletal type structures, i.e.,

Structures composed of one-dimensional slender members. Part I deals with statically determinate structures; statically indeterminate structures are covered in Part II.

Certain classical methods that we consider redundant have been omitted. Some approximate methods which are useful for estimating the response using hand computations have been included.

Part III is devoted to structural engineering issues for a range of structures frequently encountered in practice.

Emphasis is placed on structural idealization, identifying critical loading patterns; and generating the extreme values of design variables corresponding to a combination of gravity, live, wind, earthquake loading, and support settlement using computer software systems.

A Web site containing computer analysis files for certain examples and homework problems is provided. This information can be accessed at http://extras. springer.com Brief descriptions of the subject content for each part are presented below.

Part I discusses statically determinate structures. We start with an introduction to structural engineering. Statically determinate structures are introduced next.

The treatment is limited to linear elastic behavior and static loading. Separate chapters are devoted to different skeletal structural types such as trusses, beams, frames, cables, curved members, footings, and retaining walls.

Each chapter is self-contained in that all the related analysis issues for the particular structural type are discussed and illustrated.

For example, the chapter on beams deals with constructing shear and moment diagrams, methods for computing the deflection due to bending, influence lines, force envelopes, and symmetry properties.

We find it convenient from a pedagogical perspective to concentrate the related material in one location.

It is also convenient for the reader since now there is a single source point for knowledge about each structural type rather than having the knowledge distributed throughout the text. We start with trusses since they involve the least amount of theory.

The material on frames is based on beam theory so it is logical to present it directly after beam theory. Cables and curved members are special structural types that generally receive a lower priority, due to time constraints, when selecting a syllabus for an introductory course.

We have included these topics here and a treatment of footings and retaining walls because they are statically determinate structures. We revisit these structures later in Part III.

Part II presents methods for analyzing statically indeterminate structures and applies these methods to a broad range of structural types.

Two classical analysis methods are described: the force (also referred to as the flexibility) method and the displacement (or stiffness) method. We also present some approximate analysis methods that are based on various types of force and stiffness assumptions.

These methods are useful for estimating the structural response due to lateral loads using simple hand computations. Lastly, we reformulate the traditional displacement method as a finite element method using matrix notation.

The finite element formulation (FEM) is the basis of most existing structural analysis software packages. Our objectives here are twofold: First, we want to enable the reader to be able to use FEM methods in an intelligent way, and second, we want the reader to develop an understanding of structural behavior by applying analysis methods to a broad range of determinate and indeterminate skeletal structures.

We believe that using computer analysis software as a simulation tool to explore structural behavior is a very effective way of building up a knowledge base of behavioral modes, especially for the types of structures commonly employed in practice.

Part III discusses typical structural engineering problems. Our objective here is to expose the reader to a select set of activities that are now routinely carried out by structural engineers using structural engineering software.

These activities are related to the approach followed to establish the “values” for the design variables. Defining these values is the key step in the engineering design process; once they are known, one can proceed to the design detailing phase.

Specific chapters deal with horizontal structures such as multi-span girder, arch, and cable-stayed bridge systems; modeling of three-dimensional vertical structures subjected to lateral loading; and vertical structures such as low and high rise buildings subjected to gravity loading.

The topics cover constructing idealized structural models; establishing the critical design loading patterns for a combination of gravity and live to load; using analysis software to compute the corresponding design values for the idealized structures; defining the lateral loading due to wind and earthquake excitation for buildings; and estimating the three-dimensional response of low rise buildings subjected to seismic and wind loadings

. The Web site provides input files for examples and selected homework problems. Computer solutions are generated for certain example problems contained in the text using Mathcad [29], Matlab [30], and GTSTRUDL® [31].

The corresponding input files for these problems are available on extras.springer.com. In addition, a number of homework problems requiring computer solutions are included in the various chapters. Providing this information avoids the need for the student to be trained on the software.

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