Main themes

- Analysis of various classes of elastic structures
- Static finite element analysis of structures, including elastic stability
- Introduction to finite element softwares

Content and teaching methods

- Structures
* presentation and identification of different classes of structures

- Modelling of elastic structures
* one dimensional structures : beams, bars, rods, arcs
* deformations due to shear strains: the Timoshenko beam
* pane stress and plane strain states, membranes
* thin plates (Kirchoff model)
* thick plates (Reissner-Mindlin model)
* thin shells

- Finite Elements for Structures
* introduction to the calculus of variations
* variational principles in elasticity, energy principles, Cea's lemma, Hypercircle of Prager and Synge
* finite element models for different classes of structures
* special issues: shear locking, patch test, thin plates and C1 continuity, boundary conditions
* numerical implementation using MATLAB

- Numerical softwares
* principles, functionalities
* pre and post-processing, mesh generation
* validation and verification, error estimation
* applications

Other credits in programs