Stresses caused by the bending moment are known as flexural or bending stresses. Consider a beam to be loaded as shown.
Consider a fiber at a distance $y$ from the neutral axis, because of the beam's curvature, as the effect of bending moment, the fiber is stretched by an amount of $cd$. Since the curvature of the beam is very small, $bcd$ and $Oba$ are considered as similar triangles. The strain on this fiber is
where $\rho$ is the radius of curvature of the beam in mm (in), $M$ is the bending moment in N·mm (lb·in), $f_b$ is the flexural stress in MPa (psi), $I$ is the centroidal moment of inertia in mm4 (in4), and $c$ is the distance from the neutral axis to the outermost fiber in mm (in).