Notes on the Teaching of Framed Structures

THIS IS not an essay on the relative merits of the different methods of frame analysis, nor one which goes over method of sections, graphical analysis and other techniques which are adequately dealt with in a score of textbooks. Rather it is an attempt to draw attention to certain simple and fundamental ideas, to show how the student may be introduced to a range of frames in a very short time, to increase his understanding of the way they ‘work’ and also to enable him to solve frame problems by inspection if the geometric relations are easy. The latter is a useful and important examination technique.