Beam Solver

Coding project for Mechanics Based Design

Johns Hopkins University

MATLAB, beam bending, singularity functions

Write a MATLAB program to solve the stress state and reaction forces on a determinant beam.

This was an independent coding project.

The program can support rectangular and circular cross section beams loaded in the x and y plane. Concentrated, rectangular distributed, and torsional (only on circular cross sections), can be applied to the beam.
The user enters information about the type of beam they wish to solve, such as the cross section type, loading condition, and supports. The user can then specify where they would like to solve the stress state, and the program will return the bending stress, the moment, the reaction forces, and the shear stress.
The program solves the stress state of the beam using the method singularity functions from the loading conditions.
It was tested on hand-solved beam problems from our homework and returned the correct stress state.

This was a cool project to figure out as it presented two main challenges: user interaction and hard programing the singularity functions. There was a lot to keep track of between cross section types and loading conditions such that each set of possible combinations led to a valid result.
If I had to do the project again, I would use a GUI rather than have the user interact with the program on the command line, consolidate the additional functions I wrote to solve different outputs into one file, and better locking down edge cases that brake the program. I gained some additional MATLAB experience and had a program to help solve stress states for future homework problems.