IJSRD - International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol.

2, Issue 11, 2015 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613

Deflection Estimation of Varying Cross Section Cantilever Beam

Prof. S. B. Naik
Faculty
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur, Maharashtra, India
Badadal Raghavendra R.
P.G Student
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur, Maharashtra, India
Abstract— Everyone is familiar with deflection of beams
with uniform cross section. In actual practice we come
across mechanical shafts with variable cross section. In most
of practical cases, it is necessary that a beam should be not
only strong enough for its purpose, but also that it should
have required stiffness, that is; it should not deflect from its
original position by more than a certain amount. Very often
stepped simply supported shafts, stepped cantilever shafts Fig. 1: Cantilever beam formed of two tubes
are introduced in the machines. It becomes difficult to
estimate deflection for varying cross section beams. This II. AREA MOMENT OF INERTIA
paper presents a method to estimate deflection of such kind
of beams. A tube inside a tube is considered as a cantilever In any of the method it is essential to estimate the area
beam and studied. The method introduced aims at moment of inertia (M.I.). In this case the M.I. varies along
simplifying the calculation. Two standard methods are also the length. M.I. for a round tube is given by the empirical
adopted to estimate deflection. Results of new method are relation as below.
compared with those of standard method. (1)
Key words: Cantilever beam, tube, strain energy, Moment Where
Area
Substituting values of diameters in (1) M.I for
I. I NTRODUCTION various sections PQ, QR and RS are tabulated as below in
In design of machines we often come across shaft design. table 1.
The manner of loading and support of machine element Table 1: Sectional Moment of Inertia
indicate that they are beams [5]. Shafts mechanical drives Section Diameters( )(mm) M.I. ( )
are examples where the cross section varies throughout the PQ ,
length of element. The purpose of variation may be either to
reduce weight or to restrict the bearing or to hold the QR
machine elements in position etc. Decreased bending RS
moment along length of shaft allows smaller sections to be
safe with regard to bending stress [6]. In such kind of
III. ALTERNATIVE METHOD
machine elements deflection is determined for various
design constraints. The formula method is the simplest, but The deflection formulas are valid only for the cases where
it depends on availability of a suitable formula to match the the cross section of the beam is uniform for its entire length.
application. Deflection is computed by estimating equivalent To calculate deflection of varying cross section beams an
moment of inertia [1]. Standard methods are cumbersome to assumption is made in alternative method to simplify the
some extent and are also lengthy. Digital numerical calculation. It is assumed that tube „A‟ and tube „B‟ act as
integration [7] is developed and used at last step to estimate two different cantilevers as shown in fig 2. Junction „R‟ is
deflection rest of steps being same. The deflection considered as the support or fixed end for tube „B‟. Now
estimation is tried to simplify by introducing an alternative tube „A‟ is a cantilever beam of length 1m and tube „B‟ is
method. Two aluminium round tubes (one inserted partially another cantilever of length 1m. It is assumed that section
in other) are considered in the study. Tube „B‟ of inner and „RS‟ is under only point load and the same point load and
outer diameters 19mm and 21mm respectively and length bending moment is transferred to junction „R‟ for section
1.3m is inserted upto 0.3m length in tube „A‟. The inner and „PR‟. Therefore tube „B‟ is carrying a point load at free end
outer diameters of tube „A‟ are 25mm and 21mm and tube „A‟ is subjected to moment and point load at its
respectively and length 1m. One end of tube „A‟ is fixed and free end respectively. The maximum deflection is estimated
free end of tube „B‟ is subjected to a point load or which obviously occurs at free end of the beam. The fixed
concentrated load of 20N as shown in fig.1. The modulus of end constrains the beam against rotation at the support so
elasticity or Young‟s modulus is given as Pa. that the deflection curve has a zero slope there.

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 Deflection Estimation of Varying Cross Section Cantilever Beam
(IJSRD/Vol. 2/Issue 11/2015/012)

deflection of the beam at selected points. Then it is

convenient to prepare such a diagram as part of beam
analysis procedure. If the beam has uniform cross section
over its entire length, the M/EI diagram looks similar to the
bending moment diagram except that its values have been
divided by the quantity EI. Draw the bending moment
diagram (B.M.D.) as shown in fig. 3. Divide bending
moment (B.M.D.) values by shape stiffness (EI). Draw M/EI
diagram (fig. 3.), the dimension of quantity M/EI is [length]-
1
, compute area of M/EI diagram and locate its centroid. The
Fig. 2: Two tubes as two cantilevers segmented areas are denoted as , , , , , and ,
The total deflection at point „S‟ is given by (2) , , are centroids of respective area. Deflection at
free end is product of area under M/EI diagram and centroid
of area. This procedure is for cantilever beams. If deflection
at some other point is desired only area between support and
Where W= point load 20N point of interest is used. Deflection is determined based on
= length of tube „A‟ (m) theorem 2a.
= length of tube „B‟ (m)
M = Bending moment (Nm)
Substituting values of tube lengths, load and
bending moment in (2) the deflection obtained is
* ( ) +

* ( ) +
Fig. 3: Bending moment diagram B. M. D.

IV. STRAIN ENERGY METHOD

This is one of the standard methods used to estimate
deflection of varying cross section beams. The strain energy
stored by the beam is equated to work done to produce
deflection [5]. Strain energy stored is given by (3). It should
be noted that this method includes area moment of inertia of Fig. 4: M/EI diagram
all the three sections.
Substituting value for moment of inertia from table
∫ (3) 1 in EI to calculate stiffness between sections RS, QR and
PQ.
Stiffness for these three sections is computed as below.
∫ ∫ ∫
Where „x‟ is distance of any section „X‟ from „S‟.

* + * + * + M/EI is computed for each section and is given as below

Substituting values and solving the above equation we get
(5)
And,
(6)
Now equating (5) and (6) we get

(7) The areas under M/EI diagram are segmented into

regular geometric shapes and are computed as follows.
V. MOMENT AREA METHOD a
The vertical deviation of a point A on the deflection curve
The semi graphical procedure for finding beam deflections, for a beam from the tangent through another point B on the
called moment area method [6], is useful for problems in curve is equal to the moment of the area under the M/EI
which a fairly complex loading pattern occurs or when the curve with respect to point A
beam has varying cross section along its length. The
moment area method uses the quantity M/EI, the bending
moment divided by stiffness of the beam, to determine the

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 Deflection Estimation of Varying Cross Section Cantilever Beam
(IJSRD/Vol. 2/Issue 11/2015/012)

[4] A. Krishnan, G. Geetha, P. Malathi, Use of finite

difference method in the study of stepped beams,
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering
Education 26 (1)(1998)11–24.
[5] S. Ramamrutham, R. Narayanan, 2011, “Strength
The centroids of respective areas are as given below of Materials”, Dhanpat Rai Publishing Company
[6] Robert L. Mott, P. E., 2002, “Applied Strength of
( )
Materials”, Prentice Hall of India New Delhi.
[7] E. M. Odom, C. J. Eaglehoff, 2011“Teaching
( )
deflection of stepped shafts; Castiglianos Theorem,
Dummy loads, Heavside stepped functions and
( )
Numerical integration”, Frontiers in education
conference F3H pp 1-6.
( )

( )
Deflection at free end of pole is summation of
product of areas and respective centroid of areas.

VI. DISCUSSION
From above methods the deflection of cantilever at free end
is estimated. We could see that the deflection at free end
determined by standard methods viz. strain energy method
and moment area method are 0.0928 m and 0.09268 m
respectively and that determined by alternative method
introduced in the paper is 0.0916 m. New method is fastly
converging one but the result obtained is with small amount
of deviation from the actual value. The moment area method
is fairly quick and simple. The percentage error introduced
in deflection estimation by new method on comparing with
that obtained by strain energy method is 1.3%. When it is
compared with moment area method the error is 1.2%. This
could be accepted in some cases where high accuracy is not
desired. This alternative method should be tested for other
samples. Experimentation should be carried out and
deflection should be compared.

REFERENCES
[1] Luay S. Al-Ansari,2013, “ Calculating static
deflection and natural frequency of stepped
cantilever beam using modified rayleigh method”,
International Journal of Mechanical and
Production Engineering Research and
Development ISSN 2249-6890, vol 3 pp 113-124.
[2] Crala Edelhoff, Edwin M. Odom, “ On calculating
slope and deflection of stepped and tapered shaft”,
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition 2014.
[3] Majid Akbarzadeh Khorshidi, Delara Soltani,
“Analysis of non uniform beam under bending due
to inertia impact loading”, Journal of Engineering
Studies and Research 19 pp 54-63.

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