This is a brief introduction to the content of the Series relating to beams@ struts and shafts@ considering buckling of and safety factors for struts and allowable stresses in beams in both elastic and inelastic regions. Proof stress and tangent modulus are defined@ and tables present formulae for the bending moment and deflection of a beam under moments@ point loads@ or uniformly or linearly varying distributed loads for a range of end conditions (simply-supported@ free or clamped).