Simple beams are straight of single span and are generally simply supported and are therefore statically determinate using the static equilibrium laws.   The single cantilever beam which is built in at one end comes within this category.

There are three basic types of supported beam.  Other beam types can be obtained by combining these three ..

Beams can be loaded in a variety of ways.

The superposition principle provides convenient method of calculating the stresses and deflections for beams subject to a number of different loads.  The effect of each load can be established seperately and the effect of all the loads acting simultaneously can be obtained by summing the seperate results...

Beams normally have constant sections which for structural work include a variety of forms many of which are included in the sections part of this website ( Sections ).   In mechanical engineering, generally, the sections considered are round sections (shafts), or rectangular sections.  Beams with sections which vary along their length are often encountered i.e when completing beam calculations for springs, and gear teeth.  These special cases are dealt with in the notes related to these specific topics

Beam loading formulea
A number of the standard beam loading formulea are provided on this website Stress -Strain