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 ...

No, this is not a philosophical article referencing the vicious circle of cause and consequence. I just used a catchy title to draw your attention. So what I really wish to answer is what is more fundamental: Stress or Strain? Now, a few of you might argue as to why this question and tell that stress-strain always co-exist. To answer that, I must tell you that it is by looking back that we have a clear vision of the future. Thus differentiating the primary from the auxiliary, felicitates us in making groundbreaking discoveries. And besides, it’s always good to know how the human brain works and what is more instinctive to the homo sapiens. Alright, so let’s get the mess sorted. Probably many of us believe that stress has to be fundamental. We apply a force on a body, it develops stresses and leads to deformations/strains. But, this approach has a basic flaw. How do you measure stresses? All the instruments we presently have all measure deflections and it is by calibrating t...

First question comes to anyone's mind is, why the hell do we use steel as a construction material? What is so important about it? Well, the answer lies beneath the ground. Iron is one of the most abundant metal present on the planet. It is not very difficult to purify it and mold it in different shapes. Apart from it we can recycle the material very easily. This was the answer regarding it's availability. If you consider it from a strength point of view, well it is very strong and flexible. It is ductile too while helps in saving lives of thousands. It has got not strong but decent resistance against fire. Apart from it, the construction carried out using steel is pretty fast. As compared to a normal concrete structure, steel structure will take very less time to stand tall.  This was all about advantage of steel. Now lets talk about the behavior of the material. Why? Because to build any structure it is important to understand the behavior of the material. It is the mat...