Thanks to visit codestin.com
Credit goes to www.scribd.com

Scribd
Upload
54 views2 pages

Stiffness and Size Effect

Stiffness is a measure of a structural element's rigidity and its ability to resist deformation under load, quantified by Young's modulus. The stiffness of a member is influenced by its cross-sectional area and length, with shorter members being stiffer than longer ones, and larger cross-sectional areas providing greater stiffness. Various types of stiffness include axial, torsional, shear, and bending stiffness, all of which can be calculated using the relationship between force and displacement.

Uploaded by

khx2
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
54 views2 pages

Stiffness and Size Effect

Stiffness is a measure of a structural element's rigidity and its ability to resist deformation under load, quantified by Young's modulus. The stiffness of a member is influenced by its cross-sectional area and length, with shorter members being stiffer than longer ones, and larger cross-sectional areas providing greater stiffness. Various types of stiffness include axial, torsional, shear, and bending stiffness, all of which can be calculated using the relationship between force and displacement.

Uploaded by

khx2
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

CEE 3710 Stimulation 3

Stiffness and Size Effect


What is Stiffness?
Stiffness refers to the rigidity of a structural element and how
well a member is able to resist deflection and deformation when
a load is applied. The Young’s modulus (E) is how we can mea-
sure the stiffness of a material. It is important to remember that
the Young’s modulus is independent of the amount of material
because it is a material property. The stiffness of a member also
depends on the cross sectional area and the length. We will go
into further detail about how these two characteristics the ef-
fect the stiffness of a member.

There are various types of stiffness, such as


axial, torsional, shear, and bending stiff-
ness, but the general way to calculate this
value is

Where F is the force the member experi-


ences and delta is the displacement of the
member.
As an example, we will further explain
how axial stiffness is derived!
(Comsol, 2014)
CEE 3710 Stimulation 3

Answering the Question:


Why are small things stiff?

Going back to the formula that we derived for


axial stiffness, we see that the stiffness is directly
proportional to the cross sectional area and in-
versely proportional to the length of a member.
So in actuality, shorter members are stiffer than
longer members, but members with large cross
sectional areas are stiffer than those with smaller
cross sectional areas.

You might also like