Engineering

Mechanics
Internal Forces
Ch-7
Dr. Aurangzeb Rashid Masud 1
Internal Loadings Developed in Structural Members
➢To design a structural or mechanical member it is necessary to know the loading acting within
the member to be sure the material can resist this loading.
➢Internal loadings can be determined by using the method of sections.
➢Example: Consider the cantilever beam in Fig. a. If the internal loadings acting on the cross
section at point B are to be determined, we must pass an imaginary section a–a perpendicular to
the axis of the beam through point B and then separate the beam into two segments.
➢The internal loadings acting at B will then be exposed and become external on the free-body
diagram of each segment, Fig. b.

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 Internal Loadings Developed in Structural Members
➢The force component NB that acts perpendicular to the cross section is termed the normal force.
➢The force component VB that is tangent to the cross section is called the shear force.
➢The couple moment MB is referred to as the bending moment.
➢The force components prevent the relative translation between the two segments, and the
couple moment prevents the relative rotation.
➢These loadings must act in opposite directions on each segment (Newton’s third law), Fig. b.
➢They can be determined by applying the equations of equilibrium to the free-body diagram of
either segment.

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 Internal Loadings in Structural Members (3-D)
➢In three dimensions, a general resultant internal force
and couple moment resultant will act at the section.
➢The x, y, z components of these loadings are shown in
Fig. b.
➢Here Ny is the normal force, and Vx and Vz are shear
force components. My is a torsional or twisting moment,
and Mx and Mz are bending moment components.
➢For most applications, these resultant loadings will act
at the geometric center or centroid (C) of the section’s
cross-sectional area.

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 Internal Loading Sign Convention
➢For problems in two dimensions engineers generally use a sign convention to report the three
internal loadings N, V, and M.
➢Although this sign convention can be arbitrarily assigned, the one that is widely accepted will be
used here, Figure.
➢The normal force is said to be positive if it creates tension, a positive shear force will cause the
beam segment on which it acts to rotate clockwise, and a positive bending moment will tend to
bend the segment on which it acts in a concave upward manner.

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 Example 7.1
Determine the normal force, shear force, and bending moment
acting just to the left, point B, and just to the right, point C, of the
6-kN force on the beam in Fig. 7–4a.
Solution: Support Reactions;
Here the 9 kN.m couple moment is a free vector and can be placed
anywhere on the free-body diagram. We will only determine Ay,
because the left segment will be used for the analysis.

Free Body Diagrams:

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 Example 7.2
Determine the normal force, shear force, and bending moment
at C of the beam in Fig. 7–5a.
Solution: Free Body Diagrams; No need to find the support
reactions at A as segment BC of the beam can be used to
determine the internal loadings at C. Triangular distributed
load at C is determined using similar triangles from the
geometry shown in Fig. b, i.e

Replace distributed loading on BC by its resultant force

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 Shear and Moment Equations and Diagrams
➢Beams are structural members designed to support loadings
applied perpendicular to their axes.
➢The actual design of a beam requires a detailed knowledge of
the variation of the internal shear force V and bending moment M
acting at each point along the axis of the beam.
➢These variations of V and M along the beam’s axis can be
obtained by using the method of sections.
➢In this case, however, it is necessary to section the beam at an arbitrary distance x from one end
and then apply the equations of equilibrium to the segment having the length x to obtain V and M
as functions of x.
➢These functions must be determined for each segment of the beam located between any two
discontinuities of loading.

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 Shear and Moment Equations and Diagrams
Example: Segments having lengths x1, x2, and x3 will have to be used to describe the variation of V
and M along the length of the beam in Fig. a.
These functions will be valid only within regions from 0 to a for x1, from a to b for x2, and from b to
L for x3.
If the resulting functions of x are plotted, the graphs are termed the shear diagram and bending-
moment diagram.

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 Example 7.6
Draw the shear and moment diagrams for the shaft shown in Fig. a.
The support at A is a thrust bearing and at C is a general bearing
Solution: Support Reactions; Calculated and shown in figure
Shear and Moment Functions:
The shaft is sectioned at an arbitrary distance x from point A, extending
within the regions AB and BC. The free-body diagrams of the left segments
are shown in Fig. b & c. The unknowns V and M are assumed to act in the
positive sense on the right-hand face of the segment according to the
established sign convention. Applying the equilibrium equations yields

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 Example 7.6
Shear and Moment Diagrams:
• When Eqs. 1 through 4 are plotted within the regions in
which they are valid, the shear and moment diagrams
shown in Fig. d are obtained.
• The shear diagram indicates that the internal shear
force is always 2.5 kN (positive) within segment AB.
• Just to the right of point B, the shear force changes
sign and remains at a constant value of −2.5 kN for
segment BC.
• The moment diagram starts at zero, increases linearly
to point B at x = 2m,
where Mmax= 2.5kN(2m) = 5kN.m, and
thereafter decreases back to zero. 12
 Example 7.7
Draw the shear and moment diagrams for the beam shown in Fig. 7–12a.
Solution: Understand it yourself

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