analysis of structures and is designed to establish a working knowledge of the matrix operations common to finite element solution procedures. The finite element method is then introduced as a discretized application of the Rayleigh-Ritz method using the energy functional of the uniaxial elasticity problem. The method's applicability to other physical problems is set forth with an introduction to variational calculus and the derivation of the functionals corresponding to the differential equations of these problems. Finally, the Galerkin weighted residual method is developed as an alternative technique.

Hide more