The cross section of a beam has a significant effect on how easily the beam will deform. Because it is difficult to use the "shape" of a cross-section directly as a variable in an equation modeling beam behavior, we instead compute two quantities that describe properties of the cross section. ...

What is cross section method?

The volume by cross section method takes the area of all of the slices of the shape and adds them together to find the total volume. For two shapes, if the corresponding slices have the same area then the sum will be the same and the shapes will have the same volume.

How do you find the cross section of a beam?

The volume of any rectangular solid, including a cube, is the area of its base (length times width) multiplied by its height: V = l × w × h. Therefore, if a cross section is parallel to the top or bottom of the solid, the area of the cross-section is l × w.