An industrial client contacted our firm with a problem for us to fix: a beam is displacing upward and damaging fragile equipment above it. As we review photos from the field and the original...

An industrial client contacted our firm with a problem for us to fix: a beam is displacing upward and damaging fragile equipment above it. As we review photos from the field and the original structural drawings, we discover that l the beam can be idealized as simply supported with no substantial load except a couple moment at one end due to how the facade is attached.

A variety of solutions are available (e.g., add another beam a. Using the formulas for peak vertical displacement on to share the load, stiffen the beam), but the simplest might the inside front cover of this text, determine the load P be to hang a weight at midspan of the beam. required to cancel the upward deflection due to the mo- _ ment M. Since we do not yet know the magnitude of the moment, an expression in terms of M and l is most helpful. p b. While reviewing our calculations, a coworker points out that we have made an approximation/assumption that Prob. 2.6b causes P to be an estimate (beyond the idealization process).What was that approximation or assumption?