High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The moment distribution method (not to be confused with moment redistribution) is a structural analysis method for statically indeterminate beams and frames developed by Hardy Cross. It was published in 1930 in an ASCE journal. The method only accounts for flexural effects and ignores axial and shear effects. From the 1930s until computers began to be widely used in the design and analysis of structures, the moment distribution method was the most widely practiced method.