This document is part of the notes written by Terje Haukaas and posted at www.inrisk.ubc.ca.

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Stability and Degrees of

Indeterminacy

A structure has many characteristics, many of which are properties of the structural
members. This document, however, describes some global characteristics that are
important in linear static structural analysis. The characteristics are stability and
degree of static and kinematic indeterminacy.

Stability
Stability implies that there are no modes of deformation with zero stiffness. Such
modes are often called mechanisms and they make the structure unstable. An
unstable structure will collapse even without load. For 2D structural models it is
often straightforward to see that a structure is unstable. Figure 1 shows examples of
unstable structural models. The two hinges at the top of the frame combined with
the pinned supports means that this structure will collapse sideways. Even one
hinge would be sufficient to make it unstable. The truss structure in Figure 1 is also
unstable; a cross brace is required to make this a useful structure.

Terje Haukaas

University of British Columbia

Frame

Truss

www.inrisk.ubc.ca

Figure 1: Unstable frame and truss.

Obviously, great care must be exercised to avoid the presence of instabilities in

structures. Fortunately, there exist indicators that expose instabilities. The first is a
negative degree of static indeterminacy, described shortly. However, this indicator
is imperfect. A structure can be statically determinate and still unstable. Another
way of detecting instabilities is to model the structure by the stiffness method and
attempt to solve the resulting linear system of equations. If the stiffness matrix is
singular, i.e., it cannot be inverted, then instability may be the cause.

Degree of Static Indeterminacy

A structures degree of static indeterminacy (DSI) exposes the deficit of equilibrium

equations compared with the number of unknown internal forces in the structure.
In other words, for a statically determinate structure (DSI=0) it is possible to
compute the section forces (M, V, N) by equilibrium equations alone. More advanced
methods are required for structures that are statically indeterminate.
Different engineers have different habits when it comes to determining the DSI.
However, every rule boils down to counting the number of unknowns and
comparing it with the number of available equilibrium equations. In this document,
this calculation is set up as follows:

DSI = ( f m + r ) ( e j + h )

(1)

where all variables are non-negative integers with the following meaning:

f = forces

m = members
r = restraints
e = equations
j = joints

h = hinges

= number of internal force in each member

= number of members
= number of restraints, i.e., boundary conditions
= number of equilibrium equations per joint
= number of joints
= number of hinges or other section force releases

The number of internal forces, f, in each member depends on the member type. A
truss member has only one unknown force: the axial force. Conversely, a frame
member in a 2D structural model has three internal forces: axial force, shear force,
and bending moment. This number increases from three to six for 3D frame
members. Table 1 summarizes the value of f for different structures.
The number of equilibrium equations, e, per joint is obtained by counting the
orthogonal directions in which equilibrium can be considered. For the typical case
of 2D frame structures there are three equilibrium equations per joint: horizontal,
Stability and Degrees of Indeterminacy

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Terje Haukaas

University of British Columbia

www.inrisk.ubc.ca

vertical, and angular equilibrium. For a joint in a 2D structure with only truss
members entering, i.e., member without bending stiffness, rotational equilibrium is
cancelled. Table 1 summarizes the value of e for different structures.
Table 1: Forces per member and equations per joint.

2D truss

2D frame

3D truss

3D frame

The number of restraints, r, is obtained by counting the number of support
reactions. Although rather trivial, Figure 2 provides an overview of the number of
unknown reaction forces for different kinds of 2D boundary. The arrows in the
figure show the forces. The degrees of freedom will be described later.
Support type

Unknown reaction forces

Degrees of freedom

3"

0"

2"

1"

Roller

1"

2"

Slider'

2"

1"

Fixed

Pinned

Figure 2: Number of unknown forces and degrees of freedom for some 2D joint types.

The number of hinges, h, is obtained by counting the number of releases in the

structure. Essentially, a hinge releases one or more section forces from being
transferred into one or more adjacent member. As a result, h counts the number of
section forces that are prevented from transferring into adjacent members. For
example, an ordinary hinge in a continuous beam prevents the bending moment
Stability and Degrees of Indeterminacy

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Terje Haukaas

University of British Columbia

www.inrisk.ubc.ca

from being transferred through the hinge, but the shear and axial forces are
transferred regardless of that hinge. Naturally, this reduces the number of
unknowns because the bending moment is known to be zero at the hinge. It is
emphasized that other releases are possible, where the shear or axial forces is
prevented from transferring to an adjacent member. For frames the number of
members, m, and joints, j, in a structural model is subjective. However, the
subjectivity does not affect the final DSI. Usually, joints are identified wherever
there is a boundary condition or a bend or intersection in the structure. If for some
reason the analyst places a joint in the middle of a frame member then this increases
j and m in a way that leaves DSI unchanged.

Internal and External Degrees of Indeterminacy

Although practically irrelevant, it is possible to divide the DSI into two categories.
The external DSI is the number of boundary conditions, i.e., number of unknown
reaction forces minus the number of global equilibrium equations. For 2D structures
there are three global equilibrium equations. For 3D structures there are six. As an
example, a 2D structure with one fixed support and one pinned support, i.e., five
unknown reaction forces, has an external DSI equal to two because there are only
three global equilibrium equations. If the total DSI is greater then the rest are
internal DSI.

Degree of Kinematic Indeterminacy

While DSI provides information about unknown member forces the degree of
kinematic indeterminacy (DKI) exposes the number of unknown joint displacements
and rotations. DSI is a key number in force-based structural analysis methods and
DKI is the key figure in displacement-based methods. In fact, the DSI is the size of
the flexibility matrix and DKI is the size of the stiffness matrix, for the flexibility
methods and the stiffness method, respectively.
The DKI is easier to determine than the DSI. Even a computer can do it in a
straightforward manner. This is why the stiffness method is implemented in all
structural analysis software, while the flexibility method is not. Essentially, DKI
counts the number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) of a structure. Each joint, usually
called node in displacement-based methods, has a pre-defined number of DOFs. A
2D structure has three DOFs per node, i.e., three possible directions to move:
horizontal, vertical, and rotation. Similarly, a 3D structural model has six degrees of
freedom per node: three displacements and three rotations. For truss structures the
rotational DOFs are neglected altogether because they are associated with zero
stiffness from the truss elements. Some structural analysis programs deal with
trusses by first keeping all rotational degrees of freedom and later restraining them
in the same way as nodes with boundary conditions are restrained.
When doing hand calculations there are two exceptions to the rule that every node
has equally many DOFs. The first is for nodes with boundary conditions. For
example, a fixed node has zero DOFs. Figure 2 provides an overview for 2D
structures of the number of DOFs per node for different boundary conditions. The
Stability and Degrees of Indeterminacy

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Terje Haukaas

University of British Columbia

www.inrisk.ubc.ca

second exception to the rule appears when axial deformations are neglected in the
analysis of frame structures. This is quite common in hand calculations with the
classical stiffness method because the axial stiffness of frame members is usually
significantly higher than the bending stiffness. Neglecting axial deformations
requires careful consideration of the DOFs at each node, which is difficult for a
computer. Hence, in computer analysis it is easier to always account for axial
deformations. By hand, one simply removes the DOFs that will experience zero
displacement when the members do not deform axially.

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