This document provides an overview of plastic analysis for structural elements. It discusses key concepts like plastic hinges, plastic section modulus, shape factors, and load factors. Plastic analysis is used to determine the ultimate or collapse load of a structure by considering the redistribution of moments that occurs after sections yield. Common failure mechanisms for determinate and indeterminate beams involve the formation of one or more plastic hinges. Methods for plastic analysis include the static/equilibrium method and kinematic/mechanism method. Examples are given for calculating the collapse load of simple structural configurations using these methods.