A unified graphical approach to the static analysis of axially loaded structures

The paper presents a unified approach to graphical methods for the static force analysis of axially loaded plane structures. This approach consists of a unified diagram which incorporates both the frame and stress diagrams. This unified representation is applied to a simple Maxwell frame and the authors include a rigorous investigation of the equivalence between the unified diagram and traditional diagrams. The paper shows that traditional diagrams can, in fact, be regarded as particular cases of the unified diagram. The concept of self-reciprocity is introduced and a dual kinematic interpretation of the unified diagram is obtained from a sequence of equivalent diagrams. These diagrams can be obtained in a straightforward manner by changing the force scale factor.