Structural Behavior 2. Structural Analysis 3. Structural Design 4. Seismic Analysis and Design

Structural engineering is one of the most complicated engineering.
It gets so
deep that you should learn all the aspects and it is also important that your
basics should be crystal clear. Let us start from scratch and understand all the
basics.
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you.html
Structural Engineering has 4 aspects.
1. Structural Behavior
2. Structural Analysis
3. Structural Design
4. Seismic Analysis and Design
In order to master structural engineering, you should learn all four aspects. If
you fail to conquer any one, you will fail. So read the post carefully.
1. Structural Behavior
Start with structural behaviour. It is the subject closest to our everyday life
and our understanding. Without getting a deep insight of structural behavior,
you can never perform correct structural analysis. If I pour water on floor, I
know that it will flow from a high point to a low point (Flow under gravity).
Similarly structural behavior will be very simple if you perform some in
house tests, like bend a scale and see what it does. Bend a sponge and see
how its pores behave. In order to understand structural behavior, refer to the
following sets of books.
 The Elements of Structures by W Morgan edited by I.Buckle
 Structures by Schodek and Bechthold
2. Structural Analysis
Understanding structural behavior is one thing. That will help you in

developing your intuition to understand the deflected shapes for structures
under a set of forces. But in order to quantify their deflected shape, the forces
and moments, the curvature and deformations you need to valuate it
numerically. This numerical evaluation can be done by either simplified set
of equations and simplified structure or a complicated set of equations with
the entire structure. But this phase is called structural analysis. You either use
spreadsheets, software or a pen and a paper to get these values of forces so
that you can design the structure. The best books that you can possibly read:
Static Analysis:
Structural Analysis by Devdas Menon

Advanced Structural Analysis by Devdas Menon
Indeterminate structural analysis by C.K. Wang
Structural analysis by R. C. Hibbeler
Strength of Materials by Stephen Timoshenko
Structural Analysis: A unified classical matrix approach by A. Ghali,
A.M.Neville and T.G.Brown
Fundamentals of Structural Stability by Simitses and Hodges
Theory of Elastic Stability by Timoshenko
Dynamic Analysis:
Dynamics of structures by A.K.Chopra

Fundamentals of Vibrations by Leonard Meirovitch
Finite Element Analysis:
Fundamentals of Finite element analysis by David Hutton

Nonlinear finite element analysis by Bathe
Plates and Shells:
Theory of Plates and Shells by Reddy
3. Structural Design
Now once you evaluate the forces in the structures you are 20% there in
completing the structure. Rest all is structural design. It is important to
thoroughly understand structural analysis, because if you evaluate the forces
wrong, then your design has already failed. It is like opening up a broken
umbrella. You know that it is not going to work. So make sure you are good
at analysis before you start designing structure. Now design is different for
different materials. There is steel and there is reinforced concrete. So here are
a few books to understand design of structures.
Reinforced Concrete Design by Park and Paulay
Reinforced Concrete: Mechanics and Design by Wight and MacGregor

Reinforced Concrete Design by Devdas Menon
Steel Structures Design by Alan Williams
Ductile Design of Steel Structures by Michael Bruneau
4. Seismic Analysis and Design
Oh boy, this is my favorite part. I love designing buildings to resist

earthquakes. I am living near one of the world’s most dangerous fault
(Cascadia subduction zone). Dynamic analysis and design of structure is my
favorite topic. I love doing this thing and I could do it forever. Just because it
can present the biggest challenges ever. So in order to understand designing
of structures in earthquakes you have to study dynamic analysis. You have to
be good at mathematics. So here are some books on seismic analysis and
design:
Modelling for Structural Analysis : Behavior and Basics by Powell

Seismic Design of reinforced concrete buildings by Jack Moehle
Seismic Design of Reinforced Concrete and Masonry Buildings by Paulay
and Priestley
Displacement Based Seismic Design by Priestley
Plastic analysis of steel structures by M Bill wong
Plasticity in reinforced concrete by Wai Fah Chen
This was just about books. Now apart from this you should refer to building
codes in your country. That will give you more information regarding design
restrictions.
Websites:
Youtube has pretty good collection of video lectures by experts in different

field of structural engineering. For example NPTEL has good collection in
almost every aspect of structural engineering. If you are learning finite
element analysis you can look up for videos of Finite element analysis by
Bathe and his whole video series from MIT will pop up.
Also you can refer to my blog structural madness if you are starting from
basics: Structural Madness. I hope this was sufficient information for the
books that you can refer in order to master structural engineering.
The frequency content of the ground motion depends on the distance of site from the fault,
type of soil and fault directivity effects. It has hardly anything to do with the magnitude of
earthquake.
Magnitude just describes the energy dissipated by the fault, in terms of fault length and ground
motion duration.
Higher magnitude typically either is a direct result of long duration of earthquake or high PGAs
and not the frequency content. A tall building is susceptible to both high as well as low
frequency vibrations. Low frequency vibrations will lead to large displacement demands in the
building while high frequency vibrations will lead to distortions as well as higher mode effects
and increased floor accelerations in the tall buildings.

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Structural engineering is one of the most complicated engineering.

 The Elements of Structures by W Morgan edited by I.Buckle

 Structures by Schodek and Bechthold

Understanding structural behavior is one thing. That will help you in

Structural Analysis by Devdas Menon

Dynamics of structures by A.K.Chopra

Finite Element Analysis:

Fundamentals of Finite element analysis by David Hutton

Plates and Shells:

Theory of Plates and Shells by Reddy

Reinforced Concrete Design by Park and Paulay

Reinforced Concrete: Mechanics and Design by Wight and MacGregor

4. Seismic Analysis and Design

Oh boy, this is my favorite part. I love designing buildings to resist

Modelling for Structural Analysis : Behavior and Basics by Powell

Youtube has pretty good collection of video lectures by experts in different

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