This book is intended for those who wish to develop a basic understanding of the load-bearing function, behavior, and design of structural members concerning building projects, bridges of all types, roofing of large spaces, etc., without any specific reference to regulations.

In this context, in addition to steel, particular attention is paid to the use of reinforced concrete and the handling of prestressing. The examination of various topics from a quantitative perspective essentially aims at the preliminary sizing of constructions while also giving special emphasis to qualitative and practical understanding, even of relatively "advanced" topics. The required knowledge of engineering is minimal.

The topics explored refer to a particularly broad spectrum of structural engineering and are divided into two parts. This volume covers:

• Introductory concepts
• The handling of equilibrium to determine the stress and deformation of beam structures (static structures)
• The handling of deformability to determine the stress of beam structures (hyperstatic structures)
• Simply supported beam
• Continuous beam
• Frames
• The influence of deformations on stress. Elastic stability
• Arches
• Cable-stayed structures.