Introduction

Abstract

The classical fundamentals of modern Structural Mechanics have been founded by two scientists. In his work “Discorsi ”, Galileo GALILEI (1564 – 1642) carried out the first systematic investigations into the fracture process of brittle solids. Besides that, he also described the influence of the shape of a solid (hollow solids, bones, blades of grass) on its stiffness, and thus successfully treated the problem of the Theory of Solids with Uniform Strength. One century later, Robert HOOKE (1635–1703) stated the fundamental law of the linear theory of elasticity by claiming that strain (alteration of length) and stress (load) are proportional (“ut tensio sic vis ”). On the basis of this material law for the Theory of Elasticity, Edme MARIOTTE (1620 – 1684), Gottfried Wilhelm von LEIBNIZ (1646 – 1716), Jakob BERNOULLI (1654 – 1705), Leonard EULER (1707 – 1783), Charles Augustin COULOMB (1736 – 1806) and others treated special problems of bending of beams.