Notes on a General Method of Treatment of Structural Discontinuities

A structure with cut–outs or other discontinuities is generally considered to be more difficult to analyse than a similar structure without such features, although it is in fact less redundant. This is largely due to the special conditions which have to be introduced to allow for these discontinuities, tending to make the calculations less adaptable to routine computation . Another and very practical reason is that it is sometimes fairly easy to—dare we say it?—make a reasonable guess at the load distribution in a structure without cut–outs, whereas a much more critical approach is necessary for the treatment of structural discontinuities. Be that as it may, it will be assumed here that the structure without discontinuities, which will henceforth be termed the “original” structure, can be analysed exactly, in the sense that all the effective redundancies are taken into account. It will now be shown how these calculations may be modified to deal with the corresponding structure with discontinuities, which for this reason will be referred to as the “modified” structure.