Structural A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such ...

mechanics or Mechanics of structures is the computation of

deformation Deformation can refer to: * Deformation (engineering), changes in an object's shape or form due to the application of a force or forces. ** Deformation (physics), such changes considered and analyzed as displacements of continuum bodies. * Defor ...

deflection Deflection or deflexion may refer to: Board games * Deflection (chess), a tactic that forces an opposing chess piece to leave a square * Khet (game), formerly ''Deflexion'', an Egyptian-themed chess-like game using lasers Mechanics * Deflection ...

s, and internal forces or

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

es (''stress equivalents'') within structures, either for design or for performance evaluation of existing structures. It is one subset of structural analysis. Structural mechanics analysis needs input data such as

structural load A structural load or structural action is a force, deformation, or acceleration applied to structural elements. A load causes stress, deformation, and displacement in a structure. Structural analysis, a discipline in engineering, analyzes the ...

s, the structure's geometric representation and support conditions, and the materials' properties. Output quantities may include support reactions, stresses and displacements. Advanced structural mechanics may include the effects of stability and non-linear behaviors. Mechanics of structures is a field of study within applied mechanics that investigates the behavior of structures under mechanical loads, such as bending of a beam, buckling of a column, torsion of a shaft, deflection of a thin shell, and vibration of a bridge. There are three approaches to the analysis: the energy methods,

flexibility method In structural engineering, the flexibility method, also called the method of consistent deformations, is the traditional method for computing member forces and displacements in structural systems. Its modern version formulated in terms of the me ...

or direct stiffness method which later developed into

finite element method The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat ...

and the plastic analysis approach.

Energy method

Energy principles in structural mechanics Energy principles in structural mechanics express the relationships between stresses, strains or deformations, displacements, material properties, and external effects in the form of energy or work done by internal and external forces. Since ener ...

Flexibility method

Flexibility method In structural engineering, the flexibility method, also called the method of consistent deformations, is the traditional method for computing member forces and displacements in structural systems. Its modern version formulated in terms of the me ...

Stiffness methods

* Direct stiffness method *

Finite element method in structural mechanics The finite element method (FEM) is a powerful technique originally developed for numerical solution of complex problems in structural mechanics, and it remains the method of choice for complex systems. In the FEM, the structural system is modeled b ...

Plastic analysis approach

* Plastic Analysis

Major topics

Beam theory Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles ** Charged particle beam, a spatially localized gro ...

Buckling In structural engineering, buckling is the sudden change in shape ( deformation) of a structural component under load, such as the bowing of a column under compression or the wrinkling of a plate under shear. If a structure is subjected to a ...

* Earthquake engineering *

* Plates and shells *

Torsion Torsion may refer to: Science * Torsion (mechanics), the twisting of an object due to an applied torque * Torsion of spacetime, the field used in Einstein–Cartan theory and ** Alternatives to general relativity * Torsion angle, in chemistry Bi ...

Trusses A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembla ...

Stiffening Stiffening is any process that increases the rigidity and structural integrity of objects. Stiffening is used in crafts, art, industry, architecture, sports, aerospace, object construction, bookbinding, etc. Mechanics In mechanics, "stiffening" ...

Structural dynamics Structural dynamics is a type of structural analysis which covers the behavior of a structure subjected to dynamic (actions having high acceleration) loading. Dynamic loads include people, wind, waves, traffic, earthquakes, and blasts. Any structur ...

* Structural instability {{DEFAULTSORT:Structural Mechanics Building engineering Structural engineering Solid mechanics Mechanics Earthquake engineering