Topic 6.

Internal Forces - Axial Force, Shear Force,

Bending Moment, Twisting Moment Diagrams
Basic Concepts

Reference: Engineering Mechanics: Statics

J. L. Meriam and L. G. Kraige

by
Dr. Sushanta Chakraborty
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
January 2021
1
Introduction
• In any engineering structure, e.g. machine, building, bridge,
aeroplane etc., a large portion of the load carrying members are
actually ‘slender’ members. The length of a slender member is
comparatively much greater than either of its cross sectional
dimensions. The use of slender members is a much more efficient
load carrying arrangement with minimum usage of material.
• Examples of slender members are – beams (usually horizontal and
resist moment), columns (usually vertical and takes compressive
force), shafts (usually circular cross section and transmit torque) etc.
Look at your study table, the legs of the table are slender members
(columns). Slender members can also be in a loop or in the form of a
coil.
2
Introduction (continued)
• While carrying a system of forces and moments, a slender member
can be pulled or pushed, bent or twisted. Such effects, although can
occur in combination, one of the effects is mostly predominant in a
particular application
• It is useful in engineering design to express the variation of one such
effect at a time along the length of the slender member. These
variations are usually expressed graphically.

Figure 1 A three dimensional body and a slender member compared

3
Method of analysis of Slender Member
• The equilibrium requirements of a slender member as a whole, as well as of
any part of it considered separately must be well understood. The interest is
to determine the resultant forces and moments acting across any cross
section of the slender member, due to the applied and reactive external
forces and moments.
• For this, first the external reaction components (forces and moments) at the
supports of the slender member as a whole are determined. Then, a
hypothetical cut or section across the member at the point of interest along
the longitudinal axis of the slender member is considered. Such a
hypothetical cross section divides the slender member into two parts.
• We can then consider either of the parts and explore the forces and
moments required at the cross section to keep that part into equilibrium,
with the external active force system and external reactions from supports
acting on this part. Usually, the forces and moments at that cross section are
resolved into components, normal as well as parallel to the orthogonal
reference axes 4
Method of analysis of Slender Member (continued)

Figure 2 Forces and Moments acting over a cross section of slender member
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Method of analysis of Slender Member (continued)
• These components of forces and moments acting on the cross section have
different effects on the slender member and have been given specialised
names like-Axial forces (producing tension and compression along
longitudinal axis), shear forces (displacing parts normal to the longitudinal
axis), bending moments (bends the member about axes perpendicular to
the longitudinal axis), twisting moments (twisting the slender member
about the longitudinal axis).

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Method of analysis of Slender Member (continued)

Figure 3 Specialised effects over a cross section of a slender member 7

Method of analysis of Slender Member (continued)
• The equilibrium equations so far learnt, are sufficient to account for the
magnitude of such forces and moments. The deformations and resulting
stresses will not be discussed and kept pending for the subject matter
related to ‘Strength of Materials’ or ‘Mechanics of Materials’
• To start with, we will initiate our discussion with the kind of a slender
member called Beam, this being most popular in application. The internal
effects are predominantly shear and bending

8
Method of analysis of Slender Member (continued)

Figure 4 Nomenclature of Specialised effects over a cross section of a Beam 9

Beams- Shear Force Diagram (SFD) and Bending Moment
Diagram (BMD)
• Beams are long (at least five times of either of the lateral dimensions),
prismatic (no change in cross section along length) slender members which
offer resistance against bending resulting mainly from applied transverse
loading

• The relationship between the applied external forces and moments with the
internal resistance of the beam (shear forces and bending moments) over
the cross sections need to be established.

• Before exploring this, let us learn some basics about the beam- its
typologies and nature of supports
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Types of Beams- according to support conditions
• Beams can be classified according to the types of supports, as well as types
of loading
• If the supports provide just adequate constraints, it is called ‘Statically
Determinate”
• If there are more supports than necessary to maintain static equilibrium,
the beam is ‘Statically Indeterminate”. Consideration of deformation will be
necessary to solve such problems (not explored here).

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Types of Beams- according to support conditions (contd.)
• A beam support is ‘simple’ if it is supported at both ends.
• A ‘cantilever’ beam has a fixed support at one of its ends.
• The support may be ‘continuous’ with multiple supports, usually they are
statically indeterminate (unless there are internal releases, like ‘internal
hinges’).
• Supports may be completely ‘fixed’ as well
• The below examples show classifications of beams according to the
supports

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Types of Beams- according to support conditions (contd.)

Figure 5 Types of Beams according to support conditions

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Types of Beams- according to Loading
• Beams can also be classified according to the nature of loading-
• A beam can support ‘concentrated load (or moment)’ or ‘distributed loads
(or moments)’- both the distributions can be uniform or non-uniform.
• ‘Uniformly distributed load’ (udl) can be expressed as load per unit length
when the intensity of load is constant.
• The intensity may also vary; the variation may be continuous or
discontinuous along certain length of the beam

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Types of Beams- according to Loading (Continued)

Figure 6 Types of Beam according to Loading

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Distributed Loading- Equivalent Concentrated load

Here, for the general load distribution

‫𝑥𝑑𝜔𝑥 ׬‬
(left one) 𝑅 = ‫ 𝑥𝑑𝜔 ׬‬and 𝑥ҧ = 𝑅

Figure 7 equivalent concentrated load against distributed loads 16

Beams- Internal Effects- Shear and Bending over a cross
section
• For beams, the internal beam effects due to a combination of external forces
and moments are the shearing forces and bending moments at cross sections,
as functions of location along the longitudinal axis of the beam. These effects
are actually the vector components of the resultant of the forces and
moments acting on a transverse section of the beam as shown earlier and are
reproduced once again.

Figure 8 Sign convensions for positive shear force and positive bending moment
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Beams- Internal Effects- Shear and Bending over a cross
section- Sign Convensions
• The above figure also shows the positive sign conventions of shear force and
bending moment at a section.

• To ensure consistency and uniqueness of interpretation of data, a sign

convention once agreed, need to be followed throughout the investigation of
a particular problem.

• We always assume the unknown Shear Force and Bending Moment to be in

these positive directions and the sign obtained finally after applying
equilibrium conditions will reveal whether the assumptions were correct.
18
General procedures for drawing the Shear Force and
Bending Moment Diagrams-
• (1) Determine the support reactions from equilibrium of the beam as a
whole
• (2) Select a location along the longitudinal axis of the beam, pass as arbitrary
transverse section through that point on the longitudinal axis. Isolate the
portion of the beam, either to the left or to the right of that arbitrary
transverse section. Determine the Shear Force V and Bending Moment M
necessary at that cross section to maintain equilibrium of that part of the
beam.

19
General procedures for drawing the Shear Force and
Bending Moment Diagrams (continued)-
• (3) Shift this arbitrarily located cross section to different locations along the
length of the beam to get sets of salient values of the Shear Forces and
Bending Moments. Avoid exact location where a concentrated force or couple
are located.
• (4) Join the discrete values of Shear Forces (SF) to complete the Shear Force
Diagram (SFD), similarly, join the discrete values of Bending Moments (BM) to
complete the Bending Moment Diagram (BMD)

Let us explore the drawing of Shear Force Diagrams and Bending Moment
Diagrams through examples.
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Topic 6. Internal Forces - Axial Force, Shear Force,
Bending Moment, Twisting Moment Diagrams
Examples- SFD BMD

Reference: Engineering Mechanics: Statics

J. L. Meriam and L. G. Kraige

by
Dr. Sushanta Chakraborty
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
January 2021 1
Example 1 Simply supported beam with a central concentrated
load

2
3
4
Example 2 Simply supported beam with uniformly distributed
load over its entire length

5
Example 3 Simply supported beam with a concentrated
moment in the middle

6
Example 4 Cantilever beam with a concentrated load or
concentrated moment at the free end

7
Example 5 Simply supported beam with a combination of a
concentrated load and a concentrated moment

8
Example 6 Simply supported beam with overhang and loaded
with a combination of concentrated and uniformly distributed
loading

9
10
Example 7 Propped cantilever beam with an Internal hinge

11
Topic 6. Internal Forces - Axial Force, Shear Force,
Bending Moment, Twisting Moment Diagrams
SFD BMD - Integration Approach

Reference: Engineering Mechanics: Statics

J. L. Meriam and L. G. Kraige

by
Dr. Sushanta Chakraborty
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
January 2021 1
Introduction
• The treatment learnt in previous lecture and examples was mostly
graphical in nature- exploring the discrete values of shear forces and
bending moments at critical sections and then joining the values to
get the representative diagrams of the variation of shear forces and
bending moments along the longitudinal axis.
• However, an analytical treatment is possible and sometimes
convenient if the variation of loading is continuous and simple
• The procedure of finding the Shear Forces and Bending Moments
following this methodology is explained with an example of a simply
supported beam, continuously loaded with a distributed load

2
Distributed Loading: Relation between loading intensity,
shear and bending

Figure 1 Simply supported beam with a distributed load 3

• Let us consider a simply supported beam, loaded with a varying intensity,
the value of which at point ‘C’ is ‘w’.
• An element of length ∆𝑥 at a distance ′𝑥’ is isolated and examined. The
increment of shear force 𝑉
and bending moment 𝑀 over this length ∆𝑥 are 𝑉 + ∆𝑉 and 𝑀 + ∆𝑀
respectively
• Equilibrium of this element in vertical direction gives
𝑉 − 𝑉 + ∆𝑉 − 𝜔 ∆𝑥 = 0
• Therefore, ∆𝑉 = −𝜔 ∆𝑥
In the limit as ∆𝑥 → 0,
𝑑𝑉
= −𝜔 … (1)
𝑑𝑥

4
• Integrating between two finite points, say C and D in the figure
𝑥𝐷
• 𝑉𝐷 − 𝑉𝑐 = − ‫𝑥𝑑 𝜔 𝑥׬‬
𝐶
𝑥𝐷
• 𝑉𝐷 = 𝑉𝑐 + − ‫𝑥𝑑 𝜔 𝑥׬‬ = (Shear Force at a distance ‘x’) +(the negative of
𝐶
the area under the loading curve from ‘C’ to ‘D’)

5
• Again, summing moments about a point on the left side of the element gives
∆𝑥
𝑀 + ∆𝑀 − 𝑀 − 𝑉 + ∆𝑉 ∆𝑥 − 𝑉∆𝑥 + 𝜔∆𝑥 =0
2
1
∆𝑀 = 𝑉∆𝑥 − 𝜔 ∆𝑥 2
2
In the limit as ∆𝑥 → 0,
𝑑𝑀
=𝑉 … (2)
𝑑𝑥

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Integrating between two finite points, say C and D in the figure
𝑥𝐷
𝑀𝐷 − 𝑀𝑐 = න 𝑉𝑑𝑥
𝑥𝐶
𝑥𝐷
𝑀𝐷 = 𝑀𝑐 + ‫𝑉 𝑥׬‬𝑑𝑥 = (Bending Moment at a distance ‘x’) +( area
𝐶
under the Shear Diagram from ‘C’ to ‘D’)

Equation (1) and (2) may be combined to yield

𝑑2 𝑀
= −𝜔 … (3)
𝑑𝑥 2

The above expression can be used to determine the expression for bending
moment very conveniently when 𝜔 is a known continuous function of 𝑥
7
Example 1 Simply supported beam with uniformly
distributed loading

8
• Students may please note that in a complicated load combination, finding a
single continuous domain for integration may not readily be found out.
• However, the present treatment is elegant and is provided for completeness
of understanding, as well as to explain the basic relationship between load
intensity, shear and bending moment