DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

MEC 4630 - Vehicle Structural Design & Material Selection

Assignment #1 (LO1)
Due Date: 13 March 2018 (11:30 am Beginning of lecture)

Question 1 [30 marks]

Fig. 1a shows a steel shaft supported in bearings at A, B and loaded by a distributed load
w0. Considering only the effect of bending and using the method of virtual forces:
a) Determine the vertical displacement at point C. (10)
b) Determine the slope of the shaft at the bearing support A. EI is constant. (10)
c) For simplicity, it was decided to replace the distributed load w0 by an equivalent (10)
uniform load w as shown in Fig. 1b, what would be the new value of the vertical
displacement at point C? Comment on both results.

Fig. 1a Fig. 1b

Question 2 [20 marks]

Using Castigliano’s second theorem, determine the vertical displacement of joint C on the truss.
Each A992 steel member has a cross-sectional area of A = 300 mm2
Question 3 [20 marks]
Fig. 2 shows the section of an angle beam. A bending moment of M0=3000 N.m is
applied to the beam in a plane at an angle of 30° to the vertical y-axis.
a) Calculate the maximum direct stress acting at point C in the beam. (10)
b) What if you are told to determine the same maximum direct stress at point C (10)
according to the principal axes? How would you do it?

Fig. 3

Question 4 [20 marks]

Find the location of the shear centre for the beam section shown in Fig. 4. All segments
have the same thickness t .

Fig. 4