The “Vierendeel,” or “open-frame,” girder, has been extensively employed on the Continent and elsewhere, mostly in bridge construction. Few continuous girders of this type have been built, but many uses may yet be found for them. A paper recently published in Japan deals with a method of analysis of this highly-redundant continuous structure, and is probably the first in the field. The method propounded there is based on the well-known Slope-Deflection Method, and involves the systematic wriring of a large number of simultaneous equations and their subsequent solution by iteration.
Edgar Lightfoot