The Bending Stress: We will first develop a relationship for the bending stress

which develops in a loaded beam. This relationship is known as the Flexure

Formula. In Diagram 1 we have shown a simply supported beam loaded at the
center. It deflects (or bends) under the load.

In Diagram 2, we have shown the left end section of the beam. As discussed
previously, when examining bending moments, horizontal forces act on the
cross sectional face of the beam section. We have shown only the horizontal
forces along the top and bottom in Diagram 2a, but the forces act across the
whole cross section as shown in the side view in Diagram 2b. The horizontal
forces decrease from maximum at the outer edges to zero at the neutral axis
(an axis running through the centroid of beam cross section).

We will now go through a relatively brief derivation to arrive at the flexure

formula. We first write an expression for the bending moment produced by the
horizontal forces with respect to the neutral axis (which is a line passing
through the centroid of the beam cross sectional area - shown in Diagram 2a).
The expression for the bending moment is simply the sum of the forces times
the perpendicular distance to the neutral axis, or:
We now note that we can express the force Fx as
; that is, the force
acting on any small horizontal strip of area (dA) is the product of axial stress at
that point and the amount of area (dA). (This simply comes from the definition
of axial stress = Force/Area). We can now rewrite the expression for the
bending moment as:
We now will rewrite this expression one more time by noting that the

horizontal forces and accompanying stresses increase linearly from zero at the
neutral axis to a maximum value at an outer edge. We can then write:
, where y is the distance from the neutral axis to area dA,
and ymax is the distance from the neutral axis to the outer edge of the beam
cross-section, as shown in Diagram 2a. We can then write the stress at an
arbitrary y as:
. We now substitute this expression into our
relationship for the bending moment and obtain
; then rewriting slightly and factoring out the
term from the summation sign (which we may since it is a
constant), we find:
; and finally we recognize that the summation term
remaining is simply the Moment of Inertia (I) about the centroid of the beam
cross section.. We now rewrite one last time, arranging terms and isolating the
stress term by itself, we finally obtain:
M ymax / I
That is, the maximum "Bending Stress" at some location along the beam is
equal to the bending moment, M, at that location "times" the distance, y, from
the neutral axis to the outer edge of the beam "divided" by the moment of
inertia, I, of the beam cross sectional area. If this seems somewhat confusing,
it will become clearer as we work through several examples.
While the formula above was derived for the maximum stress, it actually holds
for the stress at any point in the beam cross section and is known as the
Flexure Formula.

Flexure Formula:

My/I