]DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING[ Lectures of Structure I 2017-2018

Pure Bending
We can determine the stresses in terms of the bending moment as in the following eq.:

My
σ x=
I

However, the maximum tensile and compressive bending stresses acting any given cross
section

−M C1 M C2
σ1= , σ 2=
I I

where: σ : bending stress or flexural stress

I: moment of inertia
M: bending moment
y: distance from neutral axis to the point required to
compute σ in it.

C1 and C2: the distance to the top and bottom of the

beam respectively.
Or the above equations can be written as:

−M M
σ1= , σ 2=
S1 S2

where: S1 and S2 are the section moduli of the cross-sectional

area, which can be calculated from:

I I
S1 = , S 2=
C1 C2

However, for the double symmetric shapes, the value of maximum

tensile and compressive stresses can be calculated as in;

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 ]DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING[ Lectures of Structure I 2017-2018

−M C −M
σ 1 =−σ 2= =
I S

Or

MC M
σ max= =
I S

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