Teaching Structural Analysis Theory With Jupyter Notebooks

The STEAM model combines the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), forming a very relevant and increasingly fundamental educational approach within technologically advanced societies. Real-world concepts and applications are associated in ways that encourage students to apply them whenever possible to their learning processes. In this context, Jupyter Notebooks and their highly innovative tools offer transparency for scientific research and the reproducibility of new findings. These virtual notebooks can be used to display text, video, and embedded interactive graphics. In this study, two laboratory sessions are described where students use the Jupyter Notebook to learn about the direct stiffness method. This study unit within the Theory of Structures and Industrial Constructions course module involves matrix structural analysis, requiring intensive matrix calculus and computational methods, which cannot be solved with pen and paper alone. Student use of the Jupyter Notebook when applying the direct stiffness method to the resolution of reticulated structures was studied in two laboratory sessions. An example of the software was first presented and explained. The students were then required to solve a series of problems of increasing difficultly where only part of the solution was available to check their results, thereby facilitating self-directed learning. At the end of the session, the students were administered a survey to evaluate their satisfaction. The survey responses reflected their high levels of acceptance of this teaching methodology.