Practical Applications:

Evaluation of Extreme Stresses

We have already seen that the bending stress at a point is directly proportional to its distance from the neutral axis. If the stresses are plotted for several distances, we obtain a stress distribution diagram as illustrated in Figure. The maximum tensile or compressive stress takes place at the outermost layer.

If we give the maximum value for y in the bending stress expression given in Equation (1).

σ =  (M/ I) × y                                    ------------- (1)

We obtain the maximum stress. This may easily be understood from the following examples.