Properties of Steel and Concrete and the Behavior of Structures

A vast amount of new information on performance of structural materials under load is in the process of affecting, in a far-reaching manner, many established design procedures, and of creating new methods to replace outmoded approaches. At the present rate of development few engineers manage to familiarize themselves in detail with the results of pertinent research. Yet most of these new departures cannot be understood without such familiarity. The aim of this paper is to review, broadly, the basic features of these new findings on materials performance and structural behavior. They relate not only to plastic or inelastic materials properties, but also to brittle fracture, fatigue, residual stresses, creep, strength under combined stress, actual versus specified strength, and the like. Each of these features is presented not by itself, but in relation to overall performance of structures of the civil engineering type. None of the quoted research is of the writer's creation, and the only originality that can be claimed is one of presentation and interpretation.