"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote in message
...
Awl--

Been fooling around w/ this program/utility. Pretty neat.

Quick Qs:

For a W beam, you can orient it so that it looks like an "I" or like an
"H".
Which orientation does the X-X value for the moment correspond to? I
believe X-X corresponds to the "I" orientation, judging from comparisons
w/
channels, whose relative deflections is intuitively clear.

For a "4x13" W beam, whose flange width (4.060) is about equal to the main
web depth (4.160), and considerably thicker (flange thickness .345 vs web
thickness of .280), the program indicates deflection in the H position to
be
*3 times* the deflection in the "I" position--about .311" vs. .106", for a
10 foot beam supported at the ends, w/ a 1000 lb point load at the center.

Does this make sense? I would have expected the deflection in the H
position to be only 1/2 the deflection in the I position.

Whazzup?
--
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll




Without getting into a lot of "stuff" one would expect less deflection in
the "I" position. For the beam to deflect, the upper plate has to stretch
and the lower plate has to compress. This is the primary contributor to the
rigidity of the beam. The secondary contributor is the distributed
stretching and compression of the center web. In the "H" position, you only
have the distributed stretching and compression of the sides and the center
web contributes very little.

Jerry