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 as ...

mechanics or Mechanics of structures is the computation of deformations, deflections, and internal

force In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a ...

s or stresses (''stress equivalents'') within structures, either for design or for performance evaluation of existing structures. It is one subset of

structural analysis Structural analysis is a branch of Solid Mechanics which uses simplified models for solids like bars, beams and shells for engineering decision making. Its main objective is to determine the effect of loads on the physical structures and thei ...

. Structural mechanics analysis needs input data such as structural loads, 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 or direct stiffness method which later developed into finite element method and the plastic analysis approach.

Energy method

* Energy principles in structural mechanics

Flexibility method

* Flexibility method

Stiffness methods

* Direct stiffness method * Finite element method in structural mechanics

Plastic analysis approach

* Plastic Analysis

Major topics

* Beam theory * Buckling * Earthquake engineering * Finite element method in structural mechanics * Plates and shells * Torsion * Trusses * Stiffening * Structural dynamics * Structural instability {{DEFAULTSORT:Structural Mechanics Building engineering Structural engineering Solid mechanics Mechanics Earthquake engineering