Lab 1 What happens during the Bending of Cantilever Beams?

Evan Hammac Table 3 Section A4 Experiment date: 9/16/11 Due date: 9/30/11

Abstract: For this experiment a force was applied to 3 beams; two with uniform cross section and one with a variable cross section. The three beams in question were outfitted with strain gauges and using provided apparatus we applied a force at a specific point on the bar. With the data gathered the values were used to find Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio of the uniform cross section beams. Youngs modulus for this experiment was 10430ksi and Poissons ratio was found to be 0.3135. Introduction: This lab is about applying force to certain beams, namely a 7075 Aluminum beam. Ever since beams have been used in construction people have wanted to know how they will react when forces are applied. Knowing how beams will react when a force is applied at a specific point is very important. This is because if someone doesnt know how it will react then they cannot accurately construct their object of importance. In this experiment strain gauges were applied to the beams in order to measure the strain at those points. The constant cross section beam allowed for E and to be calculated which were used for the rest of the experiment. The reason why the locations of strain gauges varied, and for one beam the varying cross section is because there are certain relationships between that we wished to report. These relationships of stress strain and bending were compared to what we know for beam theory and reported on in this experiment.

Experimental Procedure: 1. Locate a mobile demonstration cart in the Integrated Mechanical Testing Lab (IMTL) 2. Launch the computer and open up LabView 3. Obtain two aluminum 7075 beams equipped with strain gages placed at various locations along their length. One will vary in cross-section and one will have a constant cross section. 4. Attach the beam of constant cross section and 2 strain gages to the apparatus. 5. Not exceeding 500 for the value of the micro strain, record 10 different P values applied to the beam. 6. Be sure to measure the location of the strain gages and how far they are from the location of P and also the dimensions of the beam. 7. Repeat 5-6 but with the variable cross section beam instead. Theory: The equation for finding youngs modulus is as follows

(1)

Where I is the moment of inertia of the beam, and m is the slope of the first graph in the results section. In order to even fin the d youngs modulus we must calculate the moment of inertia of the beam which is provided in the next equation. bh3 (2) I 12 Then after these equations are calculate the next step is to calculate the expected axial strain and compare it to the measured data. This was done by some slight manipulation of the following equation.
P I E axial y m ax x gage

(3)

This also has one last variable that we do not have an equation for, y. Y is found by the next equation.

yma x

h 2

(4)

All of these equations were manipulated and used to provide the data in this experiment. A very rough work sheet with calculations has been attached.

Results: The first two plots are corresponding the finding Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio for the aluminum beams.

Strain vs Load
500 400 300 200 100 0 -1 -100 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 y = 30.139x + 0.402 Microstrain 1 vs Load Microstrain 2 vs Load y = 96.138x + 1.3327

Transverse strain vs Axial Strain

160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 -200 -20 0 200 400 600 Transverse strain vs Axial Strain y = 0.3135x - 0.0172

The slope of the Transverse strain vs. axial strain graph gives us the Poissons ratio, 0.3135. The next figure was the graph of the beam with three strain gauges. The purpose of this graph was to see how accurate the experiment was, and to see if what we measured followed what was expected. The graph shows the measured values and plots, and the calculated values as plots with a connected linear fit line between points.

Measured and Predicted Data

500 Microstrain 1 vs Load 400 300 200 100 0 -2 -100 0 2 4 6 Microstrain 2 vs Load Microstrain 3 vs Load Calculated strain 1 vs Load Calculated Strain 2 vs Load

As the graph shows, the measured and predicted data is very close to each other; due to the high values of micro strain the points are almost stacked upon one another. This is a very good indication of the accuracy of the experiment. The next graph the very similar to the plot of the 3 strain gauge beam, except this time is has four gages and the cross section is varied at each point. This increases the length of calculations because a new moment of inertia must be found for each separate point on the beam. And as you can also see the predicated data was plotted alongside the measured data to show how close the two are, which if the experiment was done correctly they should be.

Measured and Predicted values for variable cross-section beam

500 Microstrain 1 vs Load 400 300 200 100 0 0 -100 1 2 3 4 5 Microstrain 2 vs Load Microstrain 3 vs Load Microstrain 4 vs Load Calculated strain 1 vs Load Calculated strain 2 vs Load Calculated strain 3 vs Load Calculated Strain 4 vs Load

As is evident from the graph, the values are very close, with only a few points messing things up. This is most likely due to the fact that we only conducted one trial, so we did not have anything to average the error against, giving us non-entirely linear plots. These next tables are in the same order of the graphs, and provide the data necessary for plotting the graphs.

Force (lbs.) -0.01371 0.115635 1.275045 1.467735 1.595059 2.216092 2.531375 3.179786 3.728321 4.812624

Micro strain 1 -0.53174 12.81812 123.5389 141.5765 154.8826 216.3785 244.4411 302.7814 366.0126 461.4688

Micro strain 2 -0.39795 3.546753 38.69812 44.53796 48.95398 68.21057 76.79846 94.8949 114.6664 144.2637

Micro Micro Micro Force(lbs.) strain 1 strain 2 strain 3 -0.00059 -0.63297 -0.69312 -0.8775 0.704733 67.65543 46.98218 27.8512 1.387132 132.9557 93.63214 55.43689 1.837113 176.023 123.6188 73.62769 2.458633 236.1028 166.2697 98.99066 2.70768 262.3391 185.2513 109.4317 2.96344 286.0104 202.0509 120.2953 3.325791 318.1511 225.2674 133.5621 3.796053 364.8245 258.0814 153.1749 4.784829 459.8233 325.33 193.275 Force( lbs.) 0.003 548 0.457 426 0.734 616 1.215 767 1.583 092 1.987 71

Micro strain Calculated 1 -0.05656 67.44575 132.754 175.819 235.301 259.1357 283.613 318.2914 363.2974 457.9272

Micro strain calculated 2 -0.03999 47.69137 93.87134 124.3229 166.383 183.2367 200.5448 225.0661 256.8902 323.8036

Micro strain calculated 3 -0.02343 27.937 54.98863 72.82676 97.46503 107.3377 117.4766 131.8409 150.483 189.68

microst micro micro micro Calculated Calculated calculated calculated rain1 strain 2 strain 3 strain 4 strain 1 strain 2 strain 3 strain 4 0.0073 2 0.47417 0.29465 0.03101 0.386997 0.402129 0.211466 0.22785 48.974 50.3108 27.7311 85 3 4 30.8999 49.89364 51.84451 27.26329 29.37555 82.547 85.3514 46.9515 52.2954 36 3 1 1 80.12808 83.26114 43.78424 47.17649 139.78 143.296 79.6179 88.4379 89 4 4 9 132.6095 137.7946 72.46157 78.07564 186.88 192.288 106.831 117.941 84 3 8 9 172.6754 179.4271 94.35471 101.665 225.94 128.806 142.711 41 232.244 5 2 216.809 225.2864 118.4706 127.6492

1.734 002 2.186 696 3.044 496 4.102 117

255.09 58 286.46 57 346.45 72 455.63 71

261.631 7 293.620 5 355.479 1 468.392 8

145.048 7 162.402 7 196.407 6 258.896 7

160.141 8 179.286 4 217.297 4 286.478 5

189.1359 238.5134 332.0777 447.4375

196.5312 247.8394 345.0622 464.9326

103.3492 130.3304 181.4566 244.4924

111.3563 140.428 195.5152 263.4349

Discussion: In the attached pages the E experimental was found to be 10.43*10^3ksi while the accepted is known to be 10.4*10^3ksi. This is extremely close with only .28% error, so we know that in regards to calculating the modulus the experiment was conducted well. The next step was to find Poissons ratio which we found to .3135(from the slope of graph 2), the actual value was .33 with an error of 5%. For the three gauge beam the error for micro strain 1 to its calculated counterpart was found to be only .41% percent. These low percentages help to strengthen our data even more, and show the relationships explained in the handout were right. Finally the percent error for the 4 gauge beam was 1.8%; this is most likely due to the fact that we measured one of the four varying cross sections wrong giving us this larger than previous, but still small error. The reason why our data lines up so well is because it is linear; this is proven by the data and most of all by the relationships. Since the equations use the moment, and the moment is dependent of the force, and where the force acts, the following equations will all have that force varying per x value relationship in them. Conclusion: Overall the relationships that were supposed to be found as the purpose of this experiment were found, and with the relatively low error in our data they were found quite accurately. Even for a beam with varying cross sections it still follows the same principles as a beam that does not have a varying cross section.

Reference: This is the link for the accepted data on the 7075 Al beam.
http://asm.matweb.com/search/SpecificMaterial.asp?bassnum=MA7075T6

Questions: 1)

2) The beam is called a constant stress beam because of the linearity of the graphs. The stress increases and decreases at a rate dependent upon a constant, therefore constant stress beam. Experimental results also support this name as can be seen by viewing the data provided previously in the lab. 3) A large slope means a larger moment, therefore meaning the strain will increase faster per unit force than a smaller slope with smaller moment and smaller strain. The readings of the strain gauges do make sense because our calculated values almost perfectly matched our measured values.