Teaching And Learning Structural Engineering Analysis With Matlab

The paper presents several examples of how the author uses the analysis and visualization software MATLAB in teaching analysis courses in a structural engineering university program. It also addresses how students work with the software to accelerate learning and deepen understanding. Examples include: • Animating the vibration behavior of a building frame during earthquake excitation with and without base isolation (only conference presentation, not included in paper). • Assembling structural stiffness matrices in the direct stiffness and finite element methods. • Visualizing stresses in a beam with holes. • Behavior of a shear wall with openings under lateral loading. • Illustrating the idea behind influence lines using a truss bridge. It is shown how the many built-in matrix and graphics functions enable students to focus on the logic behind an analysis method rather than time-consuming programming and debugging. The paper includes a remarkably effortless and efficient technique in MATLAB for finite element mesh generation of areas with openings. Shape and number of openings are arbitrary provided we can describe them by mathematical functions.