BeamMech

Over the years I've written several programs in languages from Perl to Lua to solve the differential equations for pure bending d²y/dx² = M/(E·I) and shear dy/dx = α·V/(G·A) of beams. These equations are used to study the deformation and stresses in structures. For the simple cases of pure bending under a single load (where E·I is constant over the length of the beam, and where shear deformation is ignored), solutions can be found in reference books. Combining them for different loads can be rather cumbersome,though. However, in practice I usually deal with cases where the bending stiffness E·I (and shear stiffness G·A) vary along the length of the beam, where there may be multiple loads present and where shear deflection cannot be ignored. Therefore I began to calculate my own solutions. These programs all followed the same pattern. The solution is determined by discretization and integration. So I decided to separate the re-usable parts and put them in a module. That was the birth of beammech.py.