Introduction

Abstract

Owing to the necessity to save weight and material in the design of modern structures, thin-walled reinforced constructions have emerged as a dominant style. These light-weight structures, however, are more susceptible than their traditional counterparts to problems originating from large deflections, nonlinear vibrations, and structural instabilities, and therefore require a greater depth and breadth of analyses.

Physical science has two different directions of progress, which have been called the ascending and the descending scale, the inductive and the deductive method, the way of analysis and of synthesis. In every physical science, we must ascend from facts to laws, by the way of induction and analysis; and we must descend from laws to consequences, by the deductive and synthetic way.

W.R. HAMILTON [31]