EXPERIMENT 6

Determination of Compressive Stress

Using Carver Press

Submitted by:

Group 1
INTRODUCTION
This part of your lab report gives the reader an overview of the whole experiment. Do not even attempt
to copy the contents of the introduction in your lab manual. You can give detailed discussions of the theoretical
background of the experiment, or you can enumerate other examples or other methods, whichever is possible. It
doesnt have to be very long; just make sure that you make the objectives and the scope clear to the reader. This
is very much like the introduction of your thesis.
METHODOLOGY
To perform the experiment, the main apparatus used was the Universal Testing Machine (UTM). The
apparatus had the loading unit and measuring unit together with a computer for analysis of data. The UTM was
used to test the tensile and compressive strength of different materials, components, and structures. The
materials to be tested were (a) wooden block, and (b) ceramic tile.

Figure 1.Materials to be used

Figure 2. Carver Press in Pilot Plant

 Figure 3. Loading Unit (left) and Measuring Unit (right)

To start the experiment, the area of each material was computed by measuring its width and the
thickness, dimensions that was contacted with the upper metal slab, that can be seen in the Figure 4.

Figure 4. Measuring the sizes of the materials

Initially, the pressure gauge was set to zero. Then, the material was placed on top of the lower metal slab
and was firmly gripped by the upper slab. Using the jack, stress was applied to the material. The pumping was
continued until the red and the black needles started to separate each other. The red needle was recorded. The
pressure was released by the operator. Lastly, the data were presented through the readings in the computer as
shown in figure below. The experiment was repeated for the next material. After the experiment, the
compressive strength of the material was computed.
 Figure 5. Testing the two materials ( wooden block and tile) using UTM

Figure 6. The computer generated the data, and graph showed the maximum force applied before the material
deteriorated.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Do not copy the data from your PDS. Utang na loob DO NOT COPY FROM YOUR PRELIMINARY
DATA SHEET para hindi redundant. Instead, attach a photocopy of your checked PDS at the end of your final
report and discuss your results in this part. If you need to refer to the data in the PDS, do it like this:
Referring to the data listed on Table 1 in the data sheet, the number
If you need to include equations, please do. Label them as such:
m
= Equation 1
V
And you can cite them in the paragraph like this: The density was computed using Equation 1
Heres how you properly call and label figures and tables:
It can be seen in Figure 1 that

Figure 1: Stinky tofu

Based on the computed values on Table 1
Table 1: Common Greek letters
Alpha
Beta
Gamma

Remember, the purpose of this part of your report is to interpret the results based on your objectives.
You can use the guide questions in the PDS as your reference in building this part of the report. I do not want to
see a Results and Discussions section that just mentions the data from the PDS without any interpretation.

CONCLUSIONS
Compressive stress is the stress on materials that leads to a smaller volume. The ultimate compressive
strength of a material is that value of uniaxial compressive stress reached when the material fails completely.
The maximum stress that an object is expected to support is called the allowable stress. The compressive
strength is usually obtained experimentally by means of a compressive test using the Carver Press apparatus.
However, rather than applying a uniaxial tensile load, a uniaxial compressive load is applied. From the
experiment, the specimen is shortened as well as spread laterally. Some of the materials to be compressed by the
carver press are hollow block, wood and ceramic tiles. The needle to be read in the pressure gauge is the red
needle.

To find the compressive stress, one has to get the area of the material which is being compressed by the
upper slab, and divide it from the applied force. After performing the experiment, it was found that the wood
has the highest stress while ceramic tile has the lowest one. Factors affecting the strength of a material are due
to its temperature, density and other physical properties. Overall, the experiment is successfully performed by
determining the maximum allowable stress that a material can tolerate using the carver press, and by analyzing
the force-stroke graph. Errors arrived from inaccuracy of measurement in gauge pressure, some irregularities of
the materials shape and efficiency of the carver press.