Finding failure of a beam system

[Jim Newt]

See attached for a picture.

I want to calculate the load that will produce a failure at the point in the picture. If I know all the required dimensions and material properties, how do I go about calculating the load that will produce failure? Thanks!

Jim

 

[Jim Newt]

What if you treat the small beam member to the right as a cantileaver beam? Any thoughts?

 

[Jim Newt]

All right, how about this:

The small beam on the right is subject to pure bending, with a square cross section and the larger beam on the left is now just a wall that the small beam is attached to. So for a predicted failure model:

σmax = 6M / (h^3)

where we could set σmax = yield stress of the material
M = Fmax * L
L = beam length
h = height of square cross section

Rearranging, I get:

Fmax = (σmax * h^3) / (6*L)

What do you think of this?