Introduction

I hope that our discussions last week about how stress varies depending in which direction

align:middle line:90% you are looking and where you are standing in a structure wasnt too strenuous or should I say stressful because this week we are going to take it a step further and discuss how dynamic loads loads that vary with time cause additional stress. We will take a look at the analysis tools that designers use to optimise structures and create modern super structures. So well move away from simple components like the beams we talked about last week and in week 3 to real structures like the cruise ship behind me.

Real structures have to be resilient have to survive unexpected and extreme events; and when they are part of a complex system we see interaction between the parts of the system that cause interdependencies that lead to unforeseen risks. In other words complex systems can be more than the sum of the parts and so we’ll touch on emergent behaviour before finishing with an end-of-course quiz concluding the design exercise and wrapping up with some thoughts on elegance and embracing simplicity.