Structural Engineering Art and Approximation

"It is better to be roughly night than precisely wrong." John Maynard Keynes

This book contains approximate structural calculation methods for engineers and architects. For easy reference and assimilation it is broken down into categories from simple beams to more complex examples. With numerous figures and photographs it closely relates theory to real structures. Engineering structures is mostly formally taught in a lecture room with little time devoted to real examples. On graduation an engineer has to cope with turning this eagerly acquired knowledge into reality. To make sense of this a designer needs to be able to test their ideas with a simple set of tools which involve little more than pen, paper and calculator. Architects often wonder if there is an easier way to evaluate alternative structural solutions in their designs.