Trent L:
Those are particular section properties of a given shape about a specific base line. If you really want to understand them, and their use, you might do well to buy a good Strength of Materials textbook and study it a bit to understand these things. We don’t normally teach first semester courses in engineering here on E-Tips, nor should we waste our time conjuring the possible uses of a given formula. You might become a better engineer if you did a little self-study on some questions like this, and then come back with a meaningful question once you have some of the basics sorted out. AISC does (used to) allow a somewhat higher allowable stress for a plate stressed in the flatwise orientation, in bending, because there are almost no stability issues, but you still use S = bd2/6 for the bending stress calc.