Essential Knowledge Text No.11 Triangulated structures

This text provides a summary of the essential knowledge of mechanics of materials for structural engineers, including elastic direct and shear stresses and strains in 2D and 3D, Mohr's circle, real and engineering stresses, geometric properties for doubly and singly symmetric sections, axial, bending, shear and torsional stresses (of open and closed sections), and effects of plasticity.

This is an introduction to the understanding of structural behaviour - applied to two-dimensional, mainly redundant frames. It demonstrates a qualitative approach, with an emphasis on a diagrammatic solution consisting of the detected shape, reactions and bending moment diagrams. A clear convention is established for the axes and diagrams, which is key to understanding structural behaviour.

This text introduces basic structural behaviours; load paths; equilibrium; stability and robustness; choosing structural form and layout; and decomposition of real structures into members and joints for analysis.