Optimal Design of Flexural Systems: Beams, Grillages, Slabs, Plates and Shells deals with the optimal design of flexural systems, with emphasis on beams, grillages, slabs, plates, and shells. Analytical methods, plastic design, plane systems, and static problems are covered, together with optimal solutions for all boundary conditions that may be of practical or theoretical interest. Comprised of nine chapters, this book begins with an introduction to the fundamental concepts of mechanics, the calculus of variations, and optimal design. The next chapters discuss theories of optimal plastic design, along with elastic and prestressed systems; the theory of optimal flexure fields that give an absolute minimum statically admissible “moment volume” for plane systems; and slabs and grillages optimized within various types of geometrical constraints. The final chapter reviews experimental work and certain practical aspects of the optimization of flexural systems. This monograph should be of interest to graduate students and research workers in structural engineering, architectural science, aerospace technology, solid mechanics, and applied mathematics as well as to practicing engineers and architects engaged in large-scale projects.