Historically, iron in different forms has been known to exist for Architectural and Engineering applications from early periods of civilisation, but in the modern context, it would be best to review the growth of steel, during the last couple of centuries. This paper, first, traces briefly the developments in steel in terms of its various aspects, which are relevant to the design of structures. It is perhaps needless to remind ourselves that humans perpetually endeavour for a better quality of life. To meet the challenge thus created for providing additional and improved infrastructure, and, riding on a number of parallel (or nearly so) developments, the frontiers for Civil and Structural engineers and architects have moved to horizons not easy to imagine. One exciting thrust has been towards increased dimensions, in both height as well as span of structures, which have touched kilometres from tens of metres. One of the important factors responsible for the aforesaid developments is without reservation, the advancements in steel, and, products based upon it, for deployment in structures, besides the related aspects of fabrication, construction and maintenance. There are other factors too, such as, the growth of electronics which has led to enormously increased capabilities in computing. Also, there are the remarkable developments in instrumentation and robotics as tools in structural engineering. This has led to a paradigm shift in the scenario for structural analysis, design and drafting, construction and maintenance. In traversing the journey above, there are different aspects and features that have already become convention through practice and literature, and there is extensive awareness about them. On the other hand, there are issues and areas of comparatively new developments about which the awareness is rather limited. The emphasis in this text is largely on the latter. Since some of these issues can provide for extensive coverage, the attempt herein is to only bring out the salient features.

从历史上看，从文明的早期开始就已经存在用于建筑和工程应用的各种形式的铁，但是在现代背景下，最好回顾一下过去两个世纪中钢铁的增长。本文首先简要地介绍了与结构设计相关的各个方面的钢铁发展。也许没有必要提醒自己，人类一直致力于改善生活质量。为了应对由此带来的挑战，即提供更多和改进的基础架构，并在许多并行（或几乎如此）的开发基础上，土木和结构工程师和建筑师的前沿领域已经移到了难以想象的境界。一种令人兴奋的努力是增加尺寸，在高度和跨度方面都达到了数十米。导致上述发展的重要因素之一是，除了制造，构造和维护的相关方面之外，毫无保留地是钢铁以及基于钢铁的产品的进步，以用于结构中。还有其他因素，例如电子产品的增长导致计算能力大大提高。此外，仪器仪表和机器人技术作为结构工程中的工具也取得了令人瞩目的发展。这导致了结构分析，设计和绘图，构造和维护方案中的范例转变。在穿越以上旅程时，通过实践和文学，已经有许多不同的方面和特征成为惯例，并且对此有广泛的认识。另一方面，有些问题和领域相对较新，对此的认识还很有限。本文中的重点主要放在后者上。由于这些问题中的一些问题可以提供广泛的覆盖，因此本文中的尝试仅是突出显着的特征。