Beams are designed to support transverse loads acting perpendicular to their longitudinal axis, these applied loads will bend, deflect, or displace the beam depending on the geometry of the structure, shape, material properties, supports, load patterns, etc.

The loads acting on supported beams will cause deformation that is usually expressed in terms of deflection. The deflection describes the change of the beam from its original neutral surface (before loading) to its neutral surface after the deformation has occurred. There are numerous methods to compute beam deflections which results in well-known formulas used in the industry.

The following document summarizes the formulas to determine the slope at the endpoint of a beam, maximum deflection, and deflection at any section of the beam.