ABSTRACT
This chapter revises one or two fundamental concepts concerning simply supported beams, including the conditions for equilibrium and the methods used to find the reactions at their supports. Beams are normally classified by the way in which they are supported. Beams have to resist the loads which act upon them, undergoing high stresses due to these loads and the resulting bending moments. The bending moment differential equation provides the fundamental relationship for the deflection curve of a loaded beam. The integration method can be applied to standard cases that include cantilevers and simply supported beams having a variety of combinations of concentrated loads, distributed loads, or both. Between the areas of tension and compression there is a layer within the beam, which is unstressed, termed the neutral layer. Its intersection with the cross-section is termed the neutral axis.
