Southern MN and Central IA | I concur with John Holland below. If you assume a 20,000 lbf point load my quick calculations gives me 139 ksi for stress in the beam. I assumed A36 steel which is pretty common as a structural material and has a yield stress of 36 ksi. Even with a 15 ft span, you still reach 104 ksi for bending stress. This is for simple beam bending so its not 100% accurate but still gives you a rough idea. In the case of your trucks, I don't know a lot about how the weight is distributed throughout the axles but with a tandem you will probably experience more loading since the axles are fairly close together. Of course, the stress will decrease as you move the axles closer to a load cell or support but with the loading at the midpoint between load cells that is the worst case. |
Engineering question...platform
