During my experience of teaching aircraft structures, I have felt the need for a textbook written specifically
for students of aeronautical engineering. Although there have been a number of excellent books
written on the subject, they are now either out of date or too specialized in content to fulfill the requirements
of an undergraduate textbook. With that in mind, I wrote Aircraft Structures for Engineering
Students, the text on which this one is based. Users of that text have supplied many useful comments to
the publisher, including comments that a briefer version of the book might be desirable, particularly for
programs that do not have the time to cover all the material in the “big” book. That feedback, along with
a survey done by the publisher, resulted in this book, An Introduction to Aircraft Structural Analysis,
designed to meet the needs of more time-constrained courses.
Much of the content of this book is similar to that of Aircraft Structures for Engineering Students, but
the chapter on “Vibration of Structures” has been removed since this is most often covered in a separate
standalone course. The topic of Aeroelasticity has also been removed, leaving detailed treatment to the
graduate-level curriculum. The section on “Structural Loading and Discontinuities” remains in the big
book but not this “intro” one. While these topics help develop a deeper understanding of load transfer
and constraint effects in aircraft structures, they are often outside the scope of an undergraduate text.
The reader interested in learning more on those topics should refer to the “big” book. In the interest of
saving space, the appendix on “Design of a Rear Fuselage” is available for download from the book’s
companion Web site. Please visit www.elsevierdirect.com and search on “Megson” to find the Web site
and the downloadable content.
Supplementary materials, including solutions to end-of-chapter problems, are available for registered
instructors who adopt this book as a course text. Please visit www.textbooks.elsevier.com for information
and to register for access to these resources.
The help of Tom Lacy, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Mississippi
State University, is gratefully acknowledged in the development of this book.
