BeamBoy

BeamBoy is a lightweight and easy to handle piece of software which is mainly aimed at engineering students and other professionals in this domain, providing you with a simple means of calculating the stability of a prismatic beam or s shaft when applying various loads.

Initial interactions

Following a brief and uneventful installation process, in which no particular steps require too much attention, you can launch the application.
Soon after, you will be prompted to input the length of the beam and whether to use 'English Units' or 'Metric Units', with feet or inches for the former option, and meters for the latter. You can then press the 'Continue' button, that will call out the main window of BeamBoy in full screen.

Display the beam, then add support points, loads or moments

From the 'Feature' menu of the program, you can 'Add Feature', with several alternatives to opt for, namely 'Add Point Load', 'Add Dist. Load', 'Add Moment' or 'Add Support', the first three of which will require you to input the 'Magnitude' and 'Location', while the last one will have you choose between 'Simple Support' and 'Cantilever Support', also entering the corresponding location.
All of these can later be edited, if the parameters of your problem change, using the 'Edit Feature' or 'Remove Feature', then typing in the number assigned to the targeted element. Moreover, you can input the 'Beam Properties', consisting of the 'Moment of Inertia', 'Modulus of Elasticity' and 'Distance to Farthest Fiber', then press the 'Continue' button.
Finally, after adding all the elements you need, the mandatory one being the 'Support', you can use the 'Calculate' function to determine whether your beam is sufficiently stable or not, the result being displayed in a popup window.

Handy beam stability calculator

To conclude, BeamBoy is an intuitive and efficient utility functioning as a learning instrument, which enables you to discover if a certain structure based on a beam or shaft is stable enough, by calculating the stress and deflection created by loads in combination with support points.