Development of a virtual testing application for the teaching and learning of structural engineering

摘要

With the recent developments in structural analysis and material technologies, engineers can now use framing systems and construction materials in a more efficient manner. This results in a reduction in safety margins and the reserve capacity of structures to accommodate abnormal or accidental loading conditions. The consideration of progressive failure or collapse in the design process has also become increasingly important. In view of this, there is a need to modify traditional teaching methods in the education of the new generation of structural engineers with the view to build up their conceptualisation of local and global structural behaviour to gain a clear understanding of the progressive failure or collapse of structural systems. In achieving this goal, we propose to educate structural engineering students using 'virtual' experiments in a self-learning environment that allows them to observe changes in structural behaviour instantly as one changes to structural geometry, support conditions, member properties and loading conditions. A user-friendly 2D structural analysis software application called iSA (Instant Structural Analysis) has been developed as a prototype self-learning environment for this purpose. This article presents some of the essential requirements of the prototype to render it a suitable tool for the teaching and learning of structural analysis and design.