Beam Design

Background
This lab will require you to apply some of the concepts that you learned in your strength
of materials lab and require you to think a little bit as well. Often times beam structures
are over designed, so your challenge will be to design a beam that supports the highest
load to weight ratio. It is also a good chance to get to know your lab partners and learn to
work efficiently with them.

Objectives:
- Design a beam that fulfills the requirements
- Construct the beam using the stated supplies
- Load the beam on 3-point bending apparatus
- Analyze the behavior of the beam

Pre-Lab
Meet with your group prior to class and come up with a design for your beam. In the
prelab describe the process you underwent to decide on the final design. If you did any
preliminary analysis (back of the napkin calculations, FEM, etc.) on the design include
this info.

Background
Your challenge is to design a beam has the highest failure load to weight ratio. The beam
will be loaded with the three point bending setup used in class with the following loading
conditions. A load will be applied to failure. The beam should be designed to fail at the
specified location (dotted line). You will be provided with 2 inch x 2 inch x 10
polystyrene foam (Styrofoam) insulation. Various cutting tools and hot wire cutter will
be available for use for use in the class. Each team will design a lab together and
fabricate one specimen. Your analysis could be as simple as using the flexure formula or
as complex as using a FEM program to decide on an optimal shape to fulfill the
requirements. Have your design finalized before showing up to class, this will give you
the maximum time to construct your beam. The team that has the highest ratio will be
given 5% extra credit on the lab.

4 inch

8 inch
Data Analysis and Reporting (Memo Report)
1. Final design of the beam
2. Design process of the beam. (Did you make any changes once you started to
create the beam?)
3. Calculation of load required to failure based on design and where the failure load
will occur. (This can be a very simple calculation using beam theory.)
4. Calculate the failure load to beam weight ratio from the collected data and
indicate the failure location with respect to calculated failure location.

Helpful hints:
When designing your beam be sure to take a look in your AME 324A textbook as well as
looking around at some of the structures commonly seen in building and bridges.