Dominance of Shear Stresses in Early Stages of Impulsive Motion of Beams

Abstract

In order to compare the magnitude of bending stresses and shear stresses in beams under the action of impulsive forces, the values of these stresses are determined from the known differential equations for the Timoshenko beam. It is found that in the early stages, soon after the initiation of the motion, the shear stresses are of much larger magnitude than the bending stresses. This result indicates that for sufficiently large initial velocities first yielding will be in shear, a matter of consequence in plastic analysis.