? for a structural engineer

[Minnreefer]

My boss and I are designing a large vacuum chamber and need to be able to figure out the bend and break strength of a beam at a certain point. The beam would probably be 6061-t6 aluminum for a span of 48". Or the other question is how thick of aluminum for a size of 48" X 60" that has to support approximately 44,100 LBS. If anyone has knows about structural strength and wants to help, your help would be very much appreciated. We do have more values but trying to figure this out.

Jon

[murphy]

Two questions

If the aluminum is spanning 48", I'm assuming that the support is along the 60" side. Is it supported along that whole length, or only in a few places?

Is the 44,100 pounds concentrated at any particular point, or is it somewhat evenly distributed over the surface area.