ABSTRACT
Beams under vertical loads are almost always encountered in structural work. Furthermore, the computation of shear forces, bending moments, slopes, and deflections is often so tedious that it becomes worthwhile at times to make use of the digital computer via the method of finite elements. The method of finite elements for beams computes the desired information for each finite element and then adjusts the results so that when the elements are put together their results a smooth deformation for the beam that closely resembles the deformation found by the usual analytical methods of integration. For trusses the nodal displacements completely and exactly determine the deformation of all the members of the truss. Thus nodal displacements of an element determine exactly the deformation of the element itself from the viewpoint of strength of materials.
