Wondering what technical questions will be asked in a mechanical engineering interview?
One of, if not the, most frequently covered topics is beam bending. The question can come in many forms, however, knowing the below equation and even more importantly, how changing the relevant variables impacts the results deflection amount is critical to understand. Whether for beam bending or any other fundamental principle asked about in interviews, it is most important to know which variables are the "drivers of change." These are variables that most affect the output behavior and also scale more than just linearly in the driving equation. For the below beam bending case, the drivers of change would be the beam's length and height (which is dependent on the cross-sectional shape and feeds into the moment of inertia variable).
Save this diagram and make note of the equation, as you will almost surely need to address it in mechanical engineering technical interviews!
