Structural Analysis Skills for Practice

For courses in structural analysis

Teach students to develop their intuition and the habit of evaluating their results

Structural Analysis: Skills for Practice encourages engineering students to develop their intuition and the habit of evaluating the reasonableness of structural analysis results. The author presents examples and homework problems that incorporate a consistent thought process structure–guess, calculate, and evaluate their results–helping students develop the metacognitive skill of thinking about their own thought process. The text presents content not seen in other structural analysis books that students need to know to pass their licensure exam and frames ideas in the context of how they will apply it on the job. Drawing upon the evaluation skills gathered from a six year project with experienced structural engineers, Hanson’s Structural Analysis helps students learn skills to transition from novice to expert faster and become more competent in their careers.

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For over twenty years, Dr. James Hanson has blended his two greatest passions:  engineering and teaching.  His undergraduate and graduate degrees come from Cornell University where his engineering and teaching skills started developing.  He further developed those skills as a structural engineer for a large chemical company and as an engineer officer in the US Army.  As a result, he is a licensed professional engineer in New York and Indiana.  

Now he is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology which means he gets to focus on developing pedagogies and testing their effectiveness.  His specialty is speeding up the novice-to-expert transition in the area of evaluating the reasonableness of analysis and design results.

Jim’s passion for blending engineering and teaching have led to awards from the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Concrete Institute.  Perhaps the most telling awards, however, are the ones he received based on nominations from his current and former students: the Rose-Hulman Honorary Alumni Award and the Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award.   

0 Evaluating Results

1 Loads and Structure Idealization

1.1  Loads

1.2  Load Combinations

1.3  Structure Idealization

1.4  Application of Gravity Loads

1.5  Application of Lateral Loads

1.6  Distribution of Lateral Loads by Flexible Diaphragm

2      Predicting Results

2.1  Qualitative Truss Analysis

2.2  Principle of Superposition

2.3  Principle of Superposition

2.4  Approximating Loading Conditions

3      Cables and Arches

3.1  Cables with Point Loads

3.2  Cables with Uniform Loads

3.3  Arches

4      Internal Force Diagrams

4.1  Internal Forces by Integration

4.2  Constructing Diagrams by Deduction

4.3  Diagrams for Frames

5      Deformations

5.1  Double Integration Method

5.2  Conjugate Beam Method

5.3  Virtual Work Method

6      Influence Lines

6.1  Table-of-Points Method

6.2  Müller-Breslau Method

6.3  Using Influence Lines

7      Introduction to Computer Aided Analysis

7.1  Why Computer Results are Always Wrong

7.2  Checking Fundamental Principles

7.3  Checking Features of the Solution

8      Approximate Analysis of Indeterminate Trusses and Braced Frames

8.1  Indeterminate Trusses

8.2  Braced Frames with Lateral Loads

8.3  Braced Frames with Gravity Loads

9      Approximate Analysis of Rigid Frames

9.1  Gravity Load Method

9.2  Portal Method for Lateral Loads

9.3  Cantilever Method for Lateral Loads

9.4  Combined Gravity and Lateral Loads

10 Approximate Lateral Displacements

10.1 Braced Frames — Story Drift Method

10.2 Braced Frames — Virtual Work Method

10.3 Rigid Frames — Stiff Beam Method

10.4 Rigid Frames — Virtual Work Method

10.5 Solid Walls — Single Story

10.6 Solid Walls — Multistory

11 Diaphragms

11.1 Distribution of Lateral Loads by Rigid Diaphragm

11.2 In Plane Shear: Collector Beams

11.3 In Plane Moment: Diaphragm Chords

12 Force Method

12.1 One Degree Indeterminate Beams

12.2 Multi-Degree Indeterminate Beams

12.3 Indeterminate Trusses

13 Moment Distribution Method

13.1 Overview of Method

13.2 Fixed End Moments and Distribution Factors

13.3 Beams and Sidesway Inhibited Frames

13.4 Sidesway Frames

14 Direct Stiffness Method for Trusses

14.1 Overview of Method

14.2 Transformation and Element Stiffness Matrices

14.3 Compiling the System of Equations

14.4 Finding Deformations, Reactions and Internal Forces

14.5 Additional Loadings

15 Direct Stiffness Method for Frames

15.1 Element Stiffness Matrix

15.2 Transformation Matrix

15.3 Global Stiffness Matrix

15.4 Loads Between Nodes

15.5 Direct Stiffness Method

15.6 Internal Forces

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