Course objectives (capabilities pursued and learning results):

The objective is the study of the Direct Stiffness Method for the analysis of frame structures. For that, the lectures concern the determination of transformation matrices, and nodal displacements and nodal forces matrices of elements. In the sequel the stiffness matrices of different types of elements are formulated in the local and global coordinate systems. The formulation of nodal loads and nodal displacements matrices of the structure together with the formulation of the total stiffness matrix of the structure follows. Finally the boundary conditions are applied and the nodal displacements of the structure are calculated. The Static Condensation Method and the Substructures Method are also included.

The result is the familiarization of the students with the Direct Stiffness Method which is used by many structural analysis programs.