Author Description

This text, written for use in an undergraduate Flight or Aircraft Structures course, presents an explanation of fundamental concepts of structural analysis and illustrates how those concepts are applied in everyday vehicular structures such as aircraft, automobiles, ships and spacecrafts. The author includes discussion of the theory of elasticity so that students may interpret the choices made in a structural analysis derivation with respect to the applicability of the result. There are true/false summaries at the end of chapters so that students may review non-mathematical key points. Also provided are an introduction to and an appreciation of boundary value problems by presenting fourth order differential equation treatment of beam bonding. The text also covers the subject of uniform torsion and membrane analogy so that students have a complete understanding of the topic. There is an introduction to analysis for design purposes which increases students' appreciation of force methods. The discussion of theory limitations and the interactions of finite deflections provides students with an incentive for further study. An appendix reviews difficult mathematical concepts.