In no branch of structural engineering is there a rigorous definition of the term “secondary stress.”

If the primary stresses in a structure are determined, that is, the stresses in the members due to an external load system, assuming that all the members are joined together by perfect pin- or ball-joints, then the secondary stresses are in general taken to be the additional stresses due to the rigidity of the actual joints used in practice.

In such a highly redundant structure as an airship hull the labour involved, in determining even the primary stresses, precludes the use of the normal methods of stressing. It is usual to make use of generalised methods which give approximate results. These generalised methods imply that the external loads are applied to the structure in a certain distribution. Though this is rarely achieved, yet the results obtained are in most cases sufficiently accurate if suitable bracing is supplied to redistribute the external loads over the cross-section; the effect of the initial wrong distribution being then merely local.