Inter‐relation of the structural variation theorems and the force method

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study the variation theorems for pin‐jointed structures and rigid‐jointed frames.

Design/methodology/approach

The generalized force method is explained in a form to illustrate the parallelism of this method and the variation theorem approaches. The inter‐relation between the variation theorems and the force method is then established.

Findings

Examples are presented to illustrate the above‐mentioned parallelism.

Originality/value

The paper shows the power of the force method as a basis of variation theorems.

Citation

Kaveh, A. and Najimi, M. (2007), "Inter‐relation of the structural variation theorems and the force method", Engineering Computations, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 763-779. https://doi.org/10.1108/02644400710833297