Bending and torsion of beams

This teaching and learning package (TLP) provides an introduction to the mechanics of beam bending and torsion, looking particularly at the bending of cantilever and free-standing beams and the torsion of cylindrical bars.

There are no specific prerequisites for this TLP, but it would be useful to be familiar with stress and strain, elastic strain and Plastic deformation, Young modulus, E and yield stress, σY. While a basic knowledge of mechanical deformation is assumed, this teaching and learning package covers all the fundamentals of beam mechanics.

On completion of this tutorial package, you should:

• Understand the stress distribution within beams subject to bending or torsion.
• Be familiar with the concepts of the radius of curvature of a section of a beam (and its reciprocal, the curvature), second moment of area, polar moment of inertia, beam stiffness and torsional stiffness.
• Be able to calculate the moments acting in a beam subject to bending or torsion.
• Be able to calculate the deflections of a beam on bending and the angle of twist of a bar under torsion.
• Be able to predict the effect of plastic deformation, at least with simple beam geometry.

Questions and links to further reading and websites are also included.

[Description and screenshot taken from the DoITPoMS page for this TLP. (c) University of Cambridge used under the terms of their CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.]

Link: http://www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/beam_bending/index.php
Publication Date: 2007-11
Source: http://www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/index.php
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
Rights: Copyright University of Cambridge. Except where otherwise noted (see http://www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/terms.php), content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Licence