Moment of Inertia Calculator

The FREE Moment of Inertia Calculator has been UPGRADED and MOVED to SkyCiv.com.



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Welcome to our free Moment of Inertia Calculator. The calculator is easy to use and will calculate the moment of inertia of a beam’s section. Simply enter the dimensions of your section, and the properties of the section will be calculated for you. This includes the the section’s area, centroid or center of mass (in both X and Y direction) and the moments of inertia (or moments of area) Ixx and Iyy. The Section Modulus Zx and Zy will also be calculated.

Typically for beams, the Ixx is the moment of inertia that is relevant. This is because the maximum moment and shear will occur at the top/bottom of the beam sections. For more information on moment of inertia, or to learn how to calculate the moment of inertia of a section, please visit our Tutorial pages.

The calculator can be used for the following beam sections: I-beam sections, Recangular sections, Hollow Recangular sections, Circular sections, Hollow Circular Sections, Triangular Sections, T-beam sections and L-beam Sections.

To begin, first select a unit which will be used throughout the calculator. Then simply add the dimensions of your beam and hit calculate!

Width (b)

Height (h)

Result Notation Value Unit
Section Area A - -
Moment of Inertia about the x-axis Ixx - -
Moment of Inertia about the y-axis Iyy - -
Distance from bottom of beam section to the centroid Cy - -
Distance from furthest left point of beam section to the centroid Cx - -
Statical Moment of Area about the x-axis Qx - -
Statical Moment of Area about the y-axis Qy - -
Section Modulus about the x-axis Zx - -
Section Modulus about the y-axis Zy - -

If you notice any bugs or have any suggestions please mention them in the comments below.

10 thoughts on “Moment of Inertia Calculator

  1. Where are the x and y axes taken through? Are they through the centroid or are they through a corner of the image or something?

    • The xx and yy axes are the x and y-axes of the centroid respectively (taken from the bottom-left point of the section).

  2. Hi,

    Nice and easy to use. Small problem though, I input the width (b) of the hollow rectangle to the same value as the internal width (b1). It now resets to this value all of the time, ie the width of the beam is now fixed at 24mm.

    Thank you,

    Martin

    • Hey Martin,
      I’m not entirely sure what you mean. However, you cannot make b and b1 the same size as if you did then there would be no beam section at all. Check the diagram and try again, as I have just checked it and it is all working fine.

      Hope this helps
      Sam

      • If I choose rectangular hollow beam, and input 5×5 outer dimensions with 4.5×4.5 inner dimensions and press calculate a value is displayed.

        When I check on the values again, the width b has changed itself to equal the value of b1, 4.5 This seems like a big error. This happens regardless of the values I input for b and b1.

  3. For the first moment Q, it’s giving an incorrect answer. For an outside diameter of 4.24in and an inside diameter of 3.65in it should be Q=(1/12)*[(4.24^(3)-3.65^(3)]=2.29982in^3. The calculator produces Q=3.06073in^3. The centroid, area and Iyy Ixx are correct.

    • Hey Tyler,
      Thanks for the feedback. We have found the error; Sorry for the inconvenience. It should be fixed now!
      Regards,
      Sam

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