This document provides an overview of plastic analysis in structural engineering. 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 when the material is in a plastic state with plastic deformation. Two common methods for plastic analysis are the equilibrium/static method and kinematic/mechanism method. Examples are given for determining the collapse load of simple beams, fixed beams with uniform loads or point loads using these two methods.