THEORY

When a beam is loaded by forces or couples, internal stresses and strains are created.
To determine these stresses and strains, the internal forces and internal couples that act on
cross sections of the beam should be determined first. Consider a cantilever beam acted upon
by a vertical force, P (Figure 2(a)). Now imagine that the beam is cut through at a cross
section XX (Figure 2(b)). For the left hand part (part A), the shear force, Q x (Figure 2(b):
blue box) and bending moment (Figure 2(c): red box) are assumed to be positive in the
directions as shown in Figure 2 (b) and (c), respectively. The positive direction is vice versa
if the right hand part (part B) of the beam is considered. For vertical equilibrium of part A,
there must be a shear force, Qx acting as shown in Figure 1(b): blue box and equal to -RA.
For vertical equilibrium of part B, the shear force, Q x evidently acts as shown and has the
value of P-RB.

Figure 2: Equilibrium of shear force and moment and sign convention

For equilibrium of moments for part A of the beam, Mx = RA x a

and equilibrium of moments for part B of the beam, Mx = RB x b - P (b-l)
Thus, MX = -b(P-RB) + Pl = -b(RA) + RA(a+b) = RA x a
APPARATUS

Figure 1: Experimental beam setup

1. Experimental beam
2. Load
3. Load hanger
4. Spring balance
5. Bubble balancer

PROCEDURE
The beam is divided into two parts (smaller-part A, larger-part B) and is connected by a joint,
thus forming a “frictionless” hinge. A moment of resistance about the hinge is provided by an
under slung spring balance, which acts at a lever arm of 150 mm. There are three load hangers
placed on the beam to induce load onto the beam and two bearings on stands to support the
beam. Spring balanced is done each time after the load is altered and the reading of the spring
balance is recorded after that. The measured bending moment in N.mm will be 150 times the
change in the spring balance reading.. Three load hangers were hung on the beam and labelled as
P1, P2 and P3 and P1 was a fixed hanger. Weights of 10N, 5N and 2N were also prepared.

The beam was set up as in Figure 3, where the load hanger P 1 was placed at 300mm from P2 and
load hanger P3 was positioned at 300mm from load hanger P2. The two parts of the beam were
 aligned by turning the adjustment knob on the spring balance until the bubble was at the centre.
The initial reading of the spring balance was observed and recorded in Table 1.

Part 1
Next, 10N load was applied on load hanger P 1. The beam was realigned using the adjustment
knob until the bubble in the spring balance was at the centre and the reading was recorded. The
step was repeated by applying the same load (10N) on load hanger P 2 and P3. The whole steps
were repeated by replacing 10N load with 20 N load and the readings of the spring balance were
recorded.

Figure 3: Bending moment at C (MC) for the load configuration in Part 1

Part 2
With the same positions of the load hangers with no loads, the beam was aligned until the bubble
in the spring balance was at the centre and the initial reading for all hangers was recorded in
Table 2. Next, 5N load was applied on load hanger P 2 and the bubble in the spring balance was
realigned and the reading was recorded. After that, 10N load was applied on load hanger P 1 and
P3 while 5N load was applied on load hanger P2. The spring balance was realigned and the
reading was recorded.

Figure 4: Bending moment at C (MC) for the load configuration in Part 2

Part 3
By using the same position of load hangers of P 1 and P2, the distance of P3 was
adjusted to be at 200 mm from load hanger P2. The beam was realigned and the initial
reading without the loads were recorded in Table 3. Next, 5N load was applied on load
hanger P1 while a 12N load was applied on load hanger P3. The beam was realigned
and the reading was recorded. The steps were repeated by hanging the loads of 5N,
10N and 2N on load hangers P1, P2 and P3 respectively. The beam was aligned using
the adjustment knob on spring balance until the bubble is at the centre and the reading
obtained was recorded.

Figure 5: Bending moment at C (MC) for the load configuration in Part 3 (different
positions and loads)