if you compressed a giant structural I-Beam...

[1982fxr]

this has nothing to do with anything...but for conversation's sake,

If you took something like a 4' length if huge/gigantic I-beam, and put it in a press vertically (everything at perfect 90 degrees), and compressed it, would it explode?

Say it was done in a manual shop press type set-up, where the force is applied incrementally?

Would it always find a way to twist and collapse on itself, or depending on conditions would it become a bomb?

Pretend you have a couple mega presses to play with

 

[DieselSaves]

Is this an immovable object vs. unstoppable force kind of question?

 

[55bigblockcid]

Ever hear of cold forging?

 

[Jeff95TA]

In theory, I'd think it would most likely fail in compression (too short to buckle). It would compress into a blob. Shouldn't explode like a bomb since it doesn't have any internal pressure.

In reality, it wouldn't be perfectly evenly loaded, and would probably locally bend, then crush awkwardly.

 

[4xdog]

Why would you think it would explode? I can't imagine a mechanism by which that would happen.

I guess there are some alloys and environmental conditions that could cause steel to fracture rather than deform, and I guess there may be some rates of loading that might cause fractured pieces to spring away from the main beam. But even that seems like a stretch and represents nothing I'd call an "explosion" in the conventional sense of extremely high rate combustion leading to the development of a pressure pulse.

 

[Ad13]

In an ideal world it would most likely balloon out from the middle, but irl it would just break from one spot and collapse

 

[theoldwizard1]

Steel I-beam, yes ?

Explode ? Highly unlikely.

Buckle. Eventually. An I-beam makes a very poor column from the standpoint of load carrying versus amount of material (steel) in the column.

 

[djjsr]

I doubt that you would ever be able to generate enough tonnage with a manual press to damage the I-beam. I've seen a 150 ton punch press, powered by a 50 hp motor, hit about a 12" section of 8" I-beam and it stopped the press (while putting a dent in the ram).

 

[stratman977]

If everything in the steel was uniform and the dimensions were perfect it would just yield. Basically just get wider and shorter.

Most likely you have some kind of imperfection in the steel or the shape or the way its being loaded and eventually it will buckle. Depending on the length of the beam you might yield before it buckles though.

If you had some really crappy steel that had a flaw in the right direction it could break apart. It wouldn't break into millions of pieces and go flying like an explosion though.

 

[zkling]

this has nothing to do with anything...but for conversation's sake,

If you took something like a 4' length if huge/gigantic I-beam, and put it in a press vertically (everything at perfect 90 degrees), and compressed it, would it explode?

Say it was done in a manual shop press type set-up, where the force is applied incrementally?

Would it always find a way to twist and collapse on itself, or depending on conditions would it become a bomb?

Pretend you have a couple mega presses to play with

It would fail, following the laws of strength of materials/material science. Depending on the slenderness ratio, material type and how the ends are fixed depends when and somewhat how, but it will buckle before it explodes*.

*assuming you are talking a somewhat ductile material.

If you want more details look up buckling and failure analysis for strength of materials.

Now if your question was will the press "explode" well it might burst a hose.

 

[LX-Markham]

question answered: it will yield, not explode.

now back to your avatar

 

[Big Pete]

depends on the steel and its condition, and the temperature, typical steels used for structural steelwork have high ductility, so it would yield and deform plasticly, if it was a high strength, heat treated steel, especially if it was cold, it could splinter in a brittle failure mode.

 

[Bruce Lancaster]

You need to tell us country of origin of I-beam and of press...

 

[Sureshot]

Not quite the same but interesting.
In the second vid the look on their faces and the slow motion video are interesting. The paint spraying off the car is unreal. Hard to get your head around the forces involved.

 

[owenst7]

Is this a mono- or polycrystalline I-beam?

 

[ddawg16]

Not quite the same but interesting.
In the second vid the look on their faces and the slow motion video are interesting. The paint spraying off the car is unreal. Hard to get your head around the forces involved.

Thanks for those two....they were fun

 

[DekeT]

The oldwizard nailed the rationale for what to expect with an I beam in compression. The flanged(thin) areas would first begin to deform under the stress and eccentric loading with non-uniform bearing would rapidly take place. Buckling of the column shortly thereafter.

A round column would behave differently. It would take much more stress per equivalent area and would eventually fail along a diagonal axis through the center. The result of which would look like two cones after a potentially violent shattering of the middle part of the core. All depends on the characteristics of the steel due a whole wide range of physical and chemical properties and method of the load application.

Or not.

 

[MikeF2316]

Not quite the same but interesting.
In the second vid the look on their faces and the slow motion video are interesting. The paint spraying off the car is unreal. Hard to get your head around the forces involved.

Did you notice that the back of the car was not even moving while the front 3/4 was being flattened? And even then, it only moved an inch or two before smoke hid everything.

 

[Sureshot]

Did you notice that the back of the car was not even moving while the front 3/4 was being flattened? And even then, it only moved an inch or two before smoke hid everything.

Yes, I can watch that slo mo per and over. The red spray coming off and the "swallowing" of the car into the sled. Unreal.

 

[RCStocker]

Sense I have a degree in architecture and have had engineering classes I will put it this way. You would need one huge machine to do any damage.

A 2x4 8 ft. long will hold 2200 pounds before it starts to fail. Huge I beams hold up sky scrapers.

It took the upper floors of the world trade center to crush what was under it. 4 ft will hold up your house.

You might get the I beam to bend over and flatten it but on end you can't kill it with a machine. There are load rats for lateral loads. Then you have what are called dead loads and live loads. You can look them up.

On a hoist the I beam would pick up the truck but the hoist cable or chain would break first.

Pick a size I beam and look up the specifications for it. I have it in books but I am not going to take the time to look them up.

If you wonder try looking it up on the web next time. It is all on here somewhere.

 

[Steinmetz]

It would fail, following the laws of strength of materials/material science. Depending on the slenderness ratio, material type and how the ends are fixed depends when and somewhat how, but it will buckle before it explodes*.

*assuming you are talking a somewhat ductile material.

If you want more details look up buckling and failure analysis for strength of materials.

Now if your question was will the press "explode" well it might burst a hose.

Correct. If loaded as a column (load applied on end of the beam), then the buckling will occur once the critical load is applied ("Euler buckling load"). If loaded transverse to the flanges in compression (no bending moment) then the web will most likely buckle, same reasoning.

It will not "explode". There would be too much plastic deformation for energy dissipation.

 

[HAP]

Here is what happened to the 2.5" pipe that was on top of my press brake. At 28 tons I noticed the pressure dropping as I was bending a piece of steel. My ram is too large to fit inside of the pipe so it was pressing on the rim.

Not quite the same comparison, but a good example of yield...

R,
HAP

 

[Chuck122]

If we assume that the steel will fail and want to figure how it will do it, It depends on the alloy and state of the steel.
For mild steels with decent malleability, it will just deform indefinitely.
On the other hand, if it is some hard and brittle steel, it will support the load until it reaches it's limit and fail dramatically.

 

[zakmartin]

Are you trying to get the universe to implode on itself to create a wormhole to go back in time and have Coach put you in fourth quarter, so you would've been state champions? I've tried it. It doesn't work.

 

[ndoran]

the answer is it depends on the material properties of the beam what will happen.

Think about the difference between an impact socket and a chrome socket and the risk of a chrome socket shattering if used with an impact gun.

Structural steel has material properties that allow it to bend under load and return to its original position when the load is released if overload to a sufficient degree it will buckle

 

[ex-x-fire]

this has nothing to do with anything...but for conversation's sake,

If you took something like a 4' length if huge/gigantic I-beam, and put it in a press vertically (everything at perfect 90 degrees), and compressed it, would it explode?

Say it was done in a manual shop press type set-up, where the force is applied incrementally?

Would it always find a way to twist and collapse on itself, or depending on conditions would it become a bomb?

Pretend you have a couple mega presses to play with

Is this another argument at work?

 

[1982fxr]

no argument, just curious as I know there are some engineers on here...

 

[Wakefield]

there were steel beams holding up the weight of the structure of my high school (now being destroyed),some of those beams were concealed inside of columns in the cafeteria. so they must be capable of withstanding a lot of force.

Some kind of steel beams holding up the Empire State Building?

 

[srmofo]

I beams are not brittle like say a bearing race is. Ive blown plenty of bearing races up in the press.

 

[Gmonkee]

In a shop I worked in we have two chunks of 12" I beam we used as blockage, wherever we needed it. Usually for supporting yellow machines as we tore them down to repair.

The 3' section has 3/8" steel end caps welded on, over time we've used it horizontally and vertically.
The damages it has taken are the center web began to fold off to one side slightly twisting the end plates. Mostly loads up to 50 tons, dynamic and static.

The shop press is made of that same I beam with a 180 ton ram. Dual beam table and top bridge reinforced with 3/4" and 1" steel plate.. The table has begun to arc downward as the top is slowly arcing upward The beams remain square to one another due to box section structure but have visibly moved to a slight gentle curve.

The form of blockage we used that has remained true is always a box structure of heavy steel plate. It seems no load we could create can undo those.

 

[Justanoldguy]

It will more than likely buckle at some point.

The density of the steel will NOT be uniform over the whole beam.
There will be soft and hard portions, so weak spots will fail.

I have shot many ramset gun pins into this type steel and it is amazing to
see the differing depths the nails go.
Granted it could be a variation in the shot but also a variation is the steel density.

 

[sberry]

The interesting part of this thread is who knows what.

 

[INYER face hole]

It wouldn't quote so I copied and pasted. Originally written by RCStocker.


"Sense I have a degree in architecture and have had engineering classes I will put it this way. You would need one huge machine to do any damage."



"Since" not "sense" degree man. And I'm pretty sure this was a "what if" situation.

 

[zkling]

Here's one that might blow your mind. Most presses are made of I beams or something similar in cross section like channel.

 

[wolf_from_wv]

Pics or it didn't happen ???

 

[mechan]

Here's one that might blow your mind. Most presses are made of I beams or something similar in cross section like channel.

Sounds like it will probably cause a rip in the space time continuum and the world will literally *implode*.