The author offers a systematic and careful development of many aspects of structural optimization, particularly for beams and plates. Some of the results are new and some have appeared only in specialized Soviet journals, or as pro ceedings of conferences, and are not easily accessible to Western engineers and mathematicians. Some aspects of the theory presented here, such as optimiza tion of anisotropic properties of elastic structural elements, have not been con sidered to any extent by Western research engineers. The author's treatment is "classical," i.e., employing classical analysis....