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Beam Strength

The strength of a beam is related to the material used. All materials have a yield strength which is an indicator of their strength. If a beam is bending and it hits and surpasses its yield strength it might begin to sag
very noticeably in which case, I suggest you leave the building/airplane/car/whatever engineered system you're in until its inspected or repaired and deemed safe to use again.

Anyway, how does yield strength relate to beam strength? Well, beams have to resist internal forces induced by loads. One of these forces is referred to as a bending moment by engineers, which is basically like
torque (if you're familiar with that) that you don't see because nothing is moving. The higher the loads, the higher the moment, the higher the stress within the beam. You don't want to reach the beam's yield
stress, so what do you do? Increase the moment of inertia, of course! Moment of Inertia is basically just a descriptor of the beam cross-section's area/configuration with reference to its centroid. As you put more
area farther away from the beam cross-sections centroid, the moment of inertia increases thereby decreasing the stress. The relationship between bending moment (M), moment of inertia (I),
and bending stress is given by this equation if your interested (sigma, or the weird circle looking thing):

Beam Stiffness/Serviceability
In case you didn't know, all beams deflect, but some do so more than others. Think about it next time you're in a big mall, or driving through a parking garage, I guarantee you'll feel it! Anyway, if those beams
deflected (sagged) a lot upon stepping on them, most us would get a little freaked out. That's why engineers design them so there's a limit on how much they can deflect. Deflection is also related to the moment of
inertia. When you increase the moment of inertia of a beam, you also increase its stiffness. Stiffness = Resistance to Deflection; Deflection = Sagging. If you're interested, this equation
describes the relationship between deflection (delta) at beam mid-span, moment of inertia (I), a distributed load (w), and beam length (L) for a simply supported beam with a concentrated load at its center
(explaining a simply supported beam as opposed to other types of beam configurations is for another post entirely):

There are a lot of equations for deflection and those are definitely for another post entirely. They depend on the beam configuration!

Why is this important?


If an engineer can design a beam with less material yet the same amount of strength/stiffness as they need, they save money.

That's always good.

Then again, you could always make a giant section with the same strength/stiffness as a small boxed section for a ton of money just for giggles. You'll probably make a bad engineer though.

Anyway, hope that helps!

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