Our project addresses the issue of teaching the behavior of structural systems to undergraduate and graduate students in engineering and architecture. Understanding modes of failure and collapse is essential for structural designers, yet the computer programs most common in undergraduate education use linear elastic analysis which does not model non-linear failure phenomena such as yielding, large displacements, or buckling. As a result, student intuition and judgment are strongly shaped by linear elastic theory, so students gain little insight into these types of failure modes and other non-linear phenomena. Our project improves structural engineering education by instilling in students a much stronger understanding of non-linear behavior. Our project involves the development of a computer program that can perform interactive, real time, analysis and animation of structural response, including yielding, large displacements, contact phenomena, and buckling. Our computer program is accompanied by an exercise manual with example problems and input files organized as topic modules that can be integrated into existing courses. The software and manual is being tested in courses in the departments of architecture and civil engineering at the University of Virginia. Our formative and summative evaluation is being done via student surveys and analysis of student work using methods developed in collaboration with University of Virginia's Teaching Resource Center. Dissemination of our will is being done via our web site as well as by papers at national conferences.
