Beam Sizing for Engineering Student Project

[Declan10]

Hi, I'm new here and I'm here to seek for help... I have this school project, I'm supposed to create an app (Funny that they asked an engineering student to do programming huh?). Basically this app involves beam calculations. It's supposed to suggest an appropriate beam sizing ( the cross sectional size). And all the user has to do is input the force locations, the shape of the cross section ( Angle bars, I-beams, etc). Thing is, i have totally no idea how to even calculate how much is too much. Initially, i thought deflection > max deflection = breaking. My lecturer referred me to http://www.awc.org/codes-standards/publications/da6 , however, i noticed some loading scenarios involve the moment of inertia, some don't, so how do i suggest the beam sizing? Also, for the first scenario which is the UDL, no matter what i do, the deflection will never exceed.

Can someone enlighten me? I know my questions seem amateur but gimme a break...i'm not even a degree student.Thanks in advance.

 

[Nidum]

Doing this properly may be too difficult without any background knowledge .

Beam sections can be chosen for a particular loading by several different methods .

The traditional simple method is to choose beam sections on the basis of the worst stress in the beam being less than or equal to an allowable maximum stress and the maximum deflection being within acceptable limits .

Here are examples of existing on line calculators :

http://www.cesdb.com/mitcalc-beam-calculation.html
http://www.engineeringcalculator.net/beam_calculator.html
http://www.engineersedge.com/beam_calc_menu.shtml

 

[Declan10]

Thanks, I'll have a look at it. I do have a little knowledge about what I'm doing, it's just that I'm not really good at it so I need guidance here and there.