3 ms·
> but a large cube of steel probably has similar strength with tensile and compressive loads. Not just similar, but pretty much identical from what I recalled
by user_7832 5y ago
> but a large cube of steel probably has similar strength with tensile and compressive loads.
Not just similar, but pretty much identical from what I recalled from my uni classes. Wikipedia for structural materials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_material) also has this bit -
>Steel is equally strong in tension and compression.
- ghaff 5y agoAs I wrote in another comment, my material science and mechanical engineering is very rusty at this point. :-) But, yeah, I-beams basically wouldn't work if steel were weak in compression because, assuming a straightforward loading of a supported beam you're basically putting one flange of the beam in tension and the other flange in the equivalent amount of compression. So the fact that one part of the I-beam is strong would be pretty much irrelevant if the other part were weak.