Shearing Force and Bending Moment

Abstract

When a bar, which is supported in some way, is subjected to a lateral force the resultant deformation of the bar is of the type known as bending. The term beam is used to describe a bar subjected to bending, and a beam may be considered as being simply supported, or built in (encastré). A beam with built-in support at one end and no other support is termed a cantilever. Only the cases of simply supported beams and cantilevers will be considered in this book, and it will be assumed that the simple support is a knife edge. Similarly, the only types of loading that will be considered are a concentrated load (that is assumed to act at a single point) and uniformly distributed loads (U.D.L.) acting over the span of the beam, or acting over a portion of the span (see figure 5.1).