Structures with Plate Components

Abstract

In the previous lectures the macrodiscrete field method was introduced and applied to a variety of continuous beam problems. Mathematical solutions for continuous beams are not very exicting to the designer interested in the innovative application of complex structural system sand repeated use of such simple structures for illustrative purposes may fail to motivate the student for continued study of the subject. This would be unfortunate. Such simple illustrative problems were selected because their solutions by other techniques are well known to the audience. It was hoped this would facilitate assimilation of the new methods through their application to familiar systems. It will be the purpose of this lecture to demonstrate the ease with which the new methods can be used to solve more complex systems many of which are intractable by classical methods. The problems will be selected with a view toward the relative elegance of the solution and the heuristic value of the structural system rather than attempting to provide the most general possible set of design formulas.