2 INTRODUCTION

values he wanted for his design, recognizing quite well the uncertainty
of the physical constants, never had time and frequently had little in
clination to devote much effort to analysis.
One of the greatest problems in this field, as it has been in all fields of
structural work, is to simplify the principles at both ends so as to make
it possible for a man to correlate his knowledge. The analysis of a
structure for continuity should be less complicated than the determina
tion of anchorage and stirrup spacing under some specifications. Many
writers on the subject of reinforced concrete seem to have held a strange
philosophy which attempts to substitute exact rules in every detail for
the judgment of the designer and builder. Some rules must check judg
ment, but there is not and will never be any substitute for the sound
judgment of the designer. All that we can hope to do is to furnish simple
and usable tools of analysis as aids to that judgment. Analysis must i
be thought of as a guide to judgment, not as a substitute for it. •

In the design of an important indeterminate structure, two analyses

of the forces and moments are usually needed. The first analysis is
necessarily more or less approximate, and it is essential that it be made
quickly. The structure designed from this analysis should usually be
so near the final structure that the designer can proceed to detailing
and to estimates of quantities. A final analysis is needed to check the
stresses in the structure as designed.
Of these two analyses the preliminary one requires greater skill.
It need not be very precise, but it should not overlook any important
factors. The effect of minor variations in proportions and of the less
important elements in analysis may be determined in the final analysis.
Analysis of the shears and bending moments in a continuous structure
implies knowledge from three sources. First and foremost are the laws
of statics; anyone who does not clearly understand these laws and their
application to structural analysis is wasting time in attempting to study
continuous structures at all. Second are the facts of geometry; these
appear in various forms in the literature of indeterminate structures,
but always the fundamental geometrical facts are very simple and very
familiar. Finally, the properties of the materials enter to some extent
into the problem; Hooke's Law is usually assumed, and the moduli
of elasticity of the component parts of a structure are involved.
In most problems of determining the moments, shears and reactions,
the properties of the material are not very important; the principles
involved are nearly all from statics and geometry, matters about which
there can be no question. In the design of the structure to resist these
forces we are, of course, concerned very largely with the properties of
the materials. If we can accurately picture the deformation of the