Moment of Inertia and Centroid of a Hexagon

Section properties of a Hexagon: area, centroid location and second moment of area (moment of inertia) about the centroidal axes and about the base and left edge. These values are used to size beams and columns, compute bending stresses (σ = M·y/I) and deflections.

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Hexagon cross section with its dimensions and centroid
  • ll = side
PropertySymbolFormula
AreaAA332l2\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{2}l^2
PerimeterPP6l6l
Centroid from the left edgexˉ\bar{x}ll
Centroid from the bottom edgeyˉ\bar{y}32l\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}l
Moment of inertia about the centroidal x-axisIˉx\bar{I}_x5316l4\frac{5\sqrt{3}}{16}l^4
Moment of inertia about the centroidal y-axisIˉy\bar{I}_y5316l4\frac{5\sqrt{3}}{16}l^4
Moment of inertia about the baseIxI_xIˉx+yˉ2A\bar{I}_x+\bar{y}^2A
Moment of inertia about the left edgeIyI_yIˉy+xˉ2A\bar{I}_y+\bar{x}^2A

The origin is the bottom-left corner of the bounding box. The moments of inertia about the base and the left edge follow from the parallel axis theorem: Ix=Iˉx+Ayˉ2I_x = \bar{I}_x + A\bar{y}^2.

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Enter the dimensions and get the area, centroid and moments of inertia instantly, with the section drawn to scale. Metric and imperial units.

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