ABSTRACT
When designing beams to withstand lateral loads, the designer must consider both bending stresses and also lateral deflections of the beam. Very often if the material of construction of the beam is steel and the length of the beam is small, the lateral deflections are usually relatively small. If, however, the beam's length is large then the lateral deflections of the beam become important, partly due to the fact that very often the deflection of the beam is proportional to the cube of its length. This chapter shows to: appreciate that beam deflections are due to bending and shear, understand and use the repeated integration method to determine maximum beam deflection, understand and use Macaulay's method to determine maximum beam deflection. It also shows how to: perform calculations on statically determinate and indeterminate beams, understand and use the moment-area method, derive and use slope-deflection equations.
