Structural Madness

Why does a beam bend? Have you ever asked this question to yourself? Did you get any answer? I know that it's difficult to find an answer about this phenomena. But let me try to explain this to you.  Consider a free falling I section from the top of a building. If it falls freely what do you think will happen? It will remain straight because all the particles are moving at the the same velocity at a particular instant of time and the acceleration is equal to the gravitational acceleration. Here I am considering the case of vacuum or else air resistance will induce some external forces. But now consider that the beam is supported at two ends. What will happen? The thing is, the particles which do not have direct support experience the gravitational force and they will try to move down. But the particles who have direct support beneath them, they will not move, they are reluctant. This thing causes internal forces and the two supported ends because of the strength of

Charlie Chaplin, one of the most famous character in the history and you will always find him with his stick. But wait, have you ever seen his stick when he rests on it? The stick in the picture above describes one of the most fundamental characteristic of a column in the field of structural engineering, called "Buckling of Column". But why did it buckle? What made the stick to bend instead of taking the load straight down the ground? Well, here we are to discuss about the event. Buckling is called an instability occurred in a structure because of excessive loading. In 1757, mathematician Leonhard Euler derived a formula for calculating the maximum load carried by a slender column. But what do we mean by slender? When the longitudinal dimensions of the member are much greater than the cross section of the member then it is called a slender member and remember you should use the word slender while describing the compression in column not when there is any tension