Beam Analysis

Ryan Stokes
276415

Ryan Stokes

276415

Contents
Reactive Force..............................................................................................3
Shear Force and Bending Moment Diagrams..............................................4
Maximum Bending Moment........................................................................6
Maximum Stress...........................................................................................6
Picking a beam.............................................................................................7
Evaluation.....................................................................................................7

Ryan Stokes

276415

Reactive Force
Before shear force, bending moments and stress can be found the reactive forces at R1 and R2 as
shown in Fig1.1 need to be calculated.

15kN

35kN

15kN/m
0.5M

0.5M

R1

R2
4M

Fig1.1
To calculated the force at R1 moments must be taken about an axis. On this beam this axis appears
0.5M in from the left of the beam at R1. Anything clockwise of this point will be positive while anti
clockwise will be negative.
The total downwards forces with R1 as the axis is shown below:
(The distributed loads have been worked out by multiplying the load of the section by the centre
point in that section. I.e the middle section is worked out by 1.5x45)
15x0.57.5x0.2545x1.53.25x7.53.5x35
Which is equal to:
214.3759.375=205
To work out R2 205 must be divided by R2s distance away from R1
205
=68.34kN
3
As upwards force is equal to downwards for R1 can be worked out as such:
11068.34=41.66kN
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276415

Shear Force and Bending Diagrams

Now using Fig1.2 Shear Force and Bending Diagrams can be created:

15kN

35kN

15kN/m
0.5M

0.5M

41.66KN

68.34kN

4M

Fig1.2

Fig1.3

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276415

Using the shear force diagram shown in fig1.3 a bending moments diagram can be created. First of
all the area of the sections must be calculated as shown below:
Section A:
15x0.5

7.5x0.5
=9.375kN
2

Section B:
19.16x1.325
=12.6935kN
2
Section C:
25.84x1.675
=21.641kN
2
Section D:
35x0.5

7.5x0.5
=19.375kN
2

Fig1.4

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Maximum Bending Moment:

To work out the maximum bending moment using fig1.4 the most extreme value needs to be taken.
For the above beam the most extreme value is 3.3185. As it I a negative number is can be said that
the beam is hogging.
3.1365 sagging at 1.834M from left
Maximum Stress:
Using the bending moment and by finding the point of inertia the position and the value of the
maximum stress can be calculated for the inverted 'T-Beam' in fig1.5

fig1.5
M =3.1365 x 10 3
Before progressing the centroid of the beam must be calculated.
In order to do this the T is split into A and B as highlighted and the centroid of each section is
divided by the total area of the shape as shown below.
A=80mm x 20mm=1600mm
B=20mm x 100mm=2000mm
A B=3600mm

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276415

y=

10 x 200060 x 1600
=32.23mm
3600

Using this centroid the second moment of area can be calculated.

Ina=

100 x3.13653
40x12.283
20x67.773
2

=2.0267 x10 6 mm 4
3
3
3

Now using this the maximum stress can be calculated as shown below:
max=

M max x y max 3.1365 x103 x 0.03223

=
=49.878x106 N / m 2
6
Ina
2.0267x10

As the result is positive it can be said that the stress is tensile. at point 'y'.
Picking a beam
In order to save time and money it is common practice to pick a standard beam from a list rather
than getting beams custom made. From the result above a beam can be chosen.
After consulting the list it seems that the the beam 127x76x13 will be appropriate as its second
moment of area axis of x -x is 473cm 4 which is the next available beam that will support the
given load.
Evaluation
There were a few discrepancies encountered during this assignment. The main issue was that the
bending moment at the end of the beam above ended up being + 1.0525 which in practice is
impossible. The reason for this is that numbers have been rounded during the calculations meaning
that the end moment wont equal zero. Though this is a problem, as it is a small number it can be
ignored. The Shear Force diagram on the other hand does end at zero.

Ryan Stokes

276415