Pure bending of an I-section beam having initial curvature

Abstract

From the two ‘approximate’ theories of bending—Elementary Theory and Winkler available to designers for the determination of bending stresses in beams having initial curvature, the Winkler approximate solution is the one closer to the exact solution development by Golovin.Timoshenko and Goodier show a comparison of stresses resulting from the three theories for a beam having rectangular cross-section. It is shown here that the values of bending stresses given by Winkler theory are very close to Golovin's exact results. The difference between the two theories lies in the range of 0·1–3·1 % increasing with the ratio, c/a, of the outer to inner radius of curvature of the beam. The above close relationship between the two theories for a beam of rectangular cross-section is also reported by Ford.