Fundamentals of Structural Engineering

Fundamentals of Structural Engineering provides a balanced, seamless treatment of both classic, analytic methods and contemporary, computer-based techniques for conceptualizing and designing a structure. The book's principle goal is to foster an intuitive understanding of structural behavior based on problem solving experience for students of civil engineering and architecture who have been exposed to the basic concepts of engineering mechanics and mechanics of materials. Distinct from many undergraduate textbooks focused mainly on either teaching manual analysis methods and applying them to simple, idealized structures-an approach based on the premise that intuition about structural behavior is developed as one works through the manual computations which, at times, may seem exhaustive, or reformulating structural analysis methods in terms of matrix notation-an approach that provides the basis for developing and understanding computer software codes, but does not contribute toward developing intuition about structural behavior. The authors of this text recognize the notion that engineers reason about behavior using simple models and intuition they acquire through problem solving. The approach adopted in this text develops this type of intuition through by presenting extensive, realistic problems and case studies together with computer simulation, allowing rapid exploration how a structure responds to changes in geometry and physical parameters. The integrated approach employed in Fundamentals of Structural Engineering offers comprehensive preparation for students and authoritative reference for practitioners of structural engineering.