EXPERIMENT 4

MECHANICAL TESTING: TENSILE TEST

Objectives:
1.1 To determine the tensile strength of the material.
1.2 To investigate responses of composite when subjected to stress and strain.

Materials:
1.1 Vanier caliper
1.2 The standard specimen for ASTM is 64 x 12.7 x 3.2 mm (2
1
/
2
x
1
/
2
x 1/8 inch)

Introduction:
The mechanical properties of a material are directly related to the response of the material
when it's subjected to mechanical stresses. Since characteristic phenomena or behavior occur at
discrete engineering stress and strain levels, the basic mechanical properties of a material are
found by determining the stresses and corresponding strains for various critical occurrences. A
wealth of information about a material's mechanical behavior can be determined by conducting a
simple tensile test in which a cylindrical or flat specimen of uniform cross-section is pulled until
it ruptures or fractures into separate pieces.
The original cross sectional area, A, and gage length, lo, are measured prior to
conducting the test and the applied load and gage displacement are continuously measured
throughout the test using computer-based data acquisition. Based on the initial geometry of the
sample, the engineering stress-strain behavior (stress-strain curve) can be easily generated from
which numerous mechanical properties, such as yield strength and elastic modulus, can be
determined.

Method:
TENSILE MACHINE OPERATION
Start-up
1. The computer screen is turned on. (The rest of the computer already on).
2. The windows were logged into.
3. The ON button and the START switch were pressed on the UTS machine.
4. The test that will be performed is decided. Flex or Tensile. The TA is notified to insure
that the proper grips and load cell are attached.
Tensile testing procedure (ASTM D3039)
1. The width and thickness of the specimens at several locations along the narrower section
in the middle is measured. These numbers were recorded on a separate sheet of paper.
They will be important in the analysis of the data.
2. The sample (tensile bar) is placed in the lower grip, so that the wide part of the sample is
within the grip.
3. The lower jar grip is tightened firmly so that the specimen is secured within the grip.
4. The J key is pressed on the keyboard to enable the jog controls.
5. The jog buttons on the machine panel were pressed or the up/down arrow keys is used
along with the shift key to lower the jaw grips, so that the narrower segment of the tensile
bar is in between the two grips.
6. The upper grip is tightened firmly.
7. F10 key and type L is hit (Loadcell) and the capacity of the load cell is entered, which is
located on the upper grip.
8. The enter key is pressed.
9. Any key is pressed to tare the load cell.
10. Type E and C (crosshead) is selected from the choices.
11. The length of specimen is measured between the edges of the jaw grips to determine the
jaw separation.
12. The grip separation that has been measured is entered.
13. Type G (graph).
14. Max. Load is set to 500 lbs.
15. Max. % Strain is set to 50%.
16. Esc is hit to exit the Set-up Scales menu.
17. The F1 key hit to select either tensile or flex.
18. The force units were verified in N, if not the F3 key is used to select those units. The
linear units were verified in mm, if not the F4 key is used to select those units.



Result:
Rice Husk Modulus Youngs (MPa) Max Strength (MPa)
0% 2408.18 9.87
5% 2663.82 9.10
10% 2152.75 9.44




0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Modulus Young's (Mpa)
0%
5%
10%




















8.6
8.8
9
9.2
9.4
9.6
9.8
10
Max Strength (Mpa)
0%
5%
10%
Discussion:
In this experiment, the specimen is clamp tightly into position. The load is applied by a
hydraulic pump which controls the flow of oil into a cylinder thereby controlling the position of
the piston within the cylinder.

A proper grip alignment eliminates bending loads and assures that the specimen is
subjected to axial loads only. If bending loads are exerted on the test specimen then stresses will
not be uniform across the thickness.
From the bar chart, tensile modulus improved with increasing fiber weight fraction in the
composites, resulting the rice husk has clean surface and leading to better interfacial bonding
between the rice husks fiber and matrix. Specimen with 5% rice husk has highest modulus which
is 2663.82 MPa. Fiber diameter increases the strength.
The maximum stress of the composite depends on several factors which are the weight or
volume fraction of the fiber, increasing fiber volume fraction, and increasing fiber weight
fraction.






Question:
1. What are the differences and similarities between the results for the fiber-reinforced
polymer versus neat polymer samples?

Fiber reinforced polymer Neat polymer
Differences High strength Low strength
High modulus Low modulus
Similarities Both contains matrix

2. Do these result follow the trends seen in literature ? If not what could be some reason
why there are those disimiliarities ?
The following result do not follow the trends in the literature due to the presence of void.
The presence of voids obstructs stress propagation when tensile stress is loaded and
induce increased brittleness.


3. What kind of trends do you expect if the fiber-loading increases to 40% compare to the
lower composition ?
The addition of 40 wt (%) RHF will resulted in a decrease of approximately 50% in
tensile strength values compared to pure UPR.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, the properties of composite were determined. The tensile strengths slightly
decreased, however it happened due to the presence of void. The optimum composition of
composite is 5% of rice husk since it have the highest tensile modulus.