Abstract: According to the principle of minimum complementary energy a mathematical statement of optimal strength design problem for elastic beams is formulated in this research, which is an extremum problem of functionals with equality and inequality constraints. Further the application of the Lagrangian multiplier method yields the necessary conditions for extrema. A set of relations that must be satisfied for the optimal solution follows afterwards. This set of relations can be used to verify the optimality of a uniform strength design or any feasible elastic design. An iterative numerical method to find the optimal solution when the uniform strength design is not optimal is also presented in this paper.