Application Question

In a construction project, a design ( structural ) engineer wan given a task to investigate the relationship between the structure of bridge ( hollow or solid ) and the its strength (allowable stress that can be afford). As such, the engineer carries out an experiment to study the relationship between both the factors. In the experiment, steel was chosen ( structural ASTM-A36). A safety factor of 2.0 was chosen in this case. The dimension of the outer beam is designed as ( 0.10 m 0.05 m ) with the inner rectangles dimension of ( 0.09 m 0.04 m) as shown in figure 1. The ultimate stress for the steel ( structural ASTM-A36) is 400 MPa.

Figure 1 (a )

Figure 1(b) Figure 1 Illustration of bending of steel beam.

Solution

Figure 2 Cross-sectional area of the beam as the difference between 2 rectangles.

i.For hollow steel beam a.Moment of Inertia. I= = (b1)(h1)3 ( b2)(h2)3 ( 0.04)(0.09)3

( 0.05)(0.10)3 -

= 1.7367 10-6 m-4

b.Allowable stress.
For a factor of 2.00 and ultimate stress of 400MPa, we have

all

=
Allowable stress = 200 MPa

c.Bending Moment. with c = ( 0.1 m) = 0.05 m

all

M1 = =

all

1.7367 10-6 m-4

( 200 106 )

Bending moment of solid steel beam, M2 M1= 6946.8 N.m = 6.95 kN.m d.Radius of curvature . Refer to the Appendix B (Typical Properties of Selected Material Used in Engineering ), we can obtain E for steel (Structural, ASTM-36) is 200 GPa (1)

Then , the following equation obtained

= 0.02m

ii.For the solid steel beam, I2 = = (b1)(h1)3 ( 0.05)(0.10)3

= 4.1667 10 -6 m-4 Bending moment. M2 =

4.1667 10 -6m-4
all

( 200 106 )

Bending moment of solid steel beam, M2 M2 = 16666.67 N.m = 16.67 kN.m (2)

From equation (1) and (2), M2 M1 , this means that with the identical safety factor and allowable stress, the solid structure steel allow higher bending moment. In other words, the solid structure of steel has a higher strength compared to hollow structure steel. However, it is costly to used solid steel beam compared to hollow beam, hence there is some compromise cases in real life situation.