The majority of the nomenclature used in this document follows what is considered commonly-used form. Exceptions and special circumstances are described when used. A few specific cases deserve definition, where many authors vary in their usage of nomenclature/symbols and there is no clear "standard."

In the text, vectors are shown by {A} or, the former being used primarily when symbolizing vector unknowns. Matrices are shown as [K], and |a| is used to denote absolute value. Natural logarithms use "ln" and base 10 logarithms are shown as "log".

In the figures, node and keypoint locations are denoted by   . Node numbers are unitalicized (1), keypoint numbers are shown italicized (1) and line numbers are shown italicized with prefix "L" (L2). Element numbers are enclosed with a circle, area numbers are enclosed with a box, and volume numbers are enclosed with a hexagon  .