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Examination on Properties of Materials

(MS4081)
DATE : J anuary 30, 2006
TIME : 14.00 - 17.00
This examination contains 7 questions each containing a number of sub-
questions.
For the mechanical part the book Fracture Mechanics, the Reader and the
Hand-outs may be consulted. For the polymer part you may consult printed ver-
sions of the notes from Blackboard and your lecture notes.
Hints:
Motivate as much as possible how a certain answer is obtained or why a
certain formula can or should be used.
When using a formula indicate which numerical values are used to obtain
the result.
If necessary check the units and report these.
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1. Of a material the following is known:
Youngs modulus E =169000 MPa
Poissons ratio =0.31
Yield strength Y =250 MPa
A uniaxial tensile test is performed on this material using a specimen with a diameter of 10
mm.
a) Calculate the 3 principal strains at an applied load of 10 kN.
b) Is it possible to calculate the principal strains at an applied load of 25 kN based on
the information given above (motivate your answer)?
At this load (25 kN) an axial elongation is measured of 10 mm using an extensometer with
a gage length of 100 mm. No necking is observed.
c) Calculate the engineering principal strains and the true principal strains.
d) Calculate the engineering axial stress and the true axial stress.
2. Indicate whether the following statements are true or false (motivate your answer as much
as possible):
a) If both the Youngs modulus and the Poissons ratio of an isotropic material are
known, the elastic shear strain due to a shear stress can be calculated.
b) The effective strain according to the Von Mises yield criterion can always be cal-
culated from the instantaneous strains.
c) A yield criterion gives information on the hardening behaviour of a material.
d) The fracture strain measured in a uniaxial tensile test is larger if it is determined
with a smaller gage length.
e) Pure shear loading always leads to plane-strain deformation.
3. Consider a material that is loaded in such a way that the principal stresses relate to each
other as:

1
:
2
:
3
=1 : : 0.
The material has a uniaxial yield strength Y =350 MPa and behaves according to the Von
Mises yield criterion.
a) Calculate the ratios of d
1
, d
2
and d
3
for the case the above mentioned stresses
lead to plastic deformation.
b) What type of strain state is now present?
c) How high are the principal stresses at the beginning of yielding?
d) As for c), but now for material behaving according to the Tresca yield criterion.
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4. The following data are known for a material:
Young's modulus E =70 GPa
Poissons ratio =0.31
yield stress
ys
=400 MPa
plane stress fracture toughness K
c
=35 MPam
plane strain fracture toughness K
Ic
=25 MPam
Of this material a double cantilever beam specimen is made (see figure) with a thickness
B =25 mm and height 2h =20 mm. The specimen contains a sharp crack with a length of
a =30 mm. The specimen is loaded with the bolt to a displacement v =0.5 mm. For this
specimen the relation between the displacement v and the force P is given by:
v =
8Pa
3
EBh
3
a) Determine what the stress state is at the crack tip: plane stress or plane strain.
b) Calculate K
I
.
c) Calculate the displacement that has to be applied (by tightening the bolt further) to
initiate crack growth.
Bonus question (yields additional points):
d) Predict what happens after tightening the bolt to a displacement v = 1.5 mm.
5. Consider a crack in glass with an infinitely sharp tip which is loaded in mode I. At a point
in the material straight ahead of the crack (

in the figure) at a distance r =2 mm from the


tip it has been measured that
y
=84 MPa. Nothing is known about the crack length or the
magnitude of mode I load.
a) Determine the normal stress component
x
and the shear stress component
xy
at the
point under consideration.
b) Calculate K
I
for this crack.
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6. Consider a linear polymer chain with N monomers of Kuhn length, b.
a) How the lengths associated to this chain depend on N and b?
Contour length
End-to-end distance in the melt
End-to-end distance in a -solvent
Tube diameter
Tube length
b) How the characteristic times associated to this chain depend on N and b and kT?
Also, explain the meaning of those times.
The monomer time
The Rouse time
The reptation time
G(t)
time
G
0
B
G
0
A
G
e
A
G
e
B

e
A

e
B

rep
A

rep
B
7. The modulus G(t) was measured by a first year student for two different polymer melts,
melt A and melt B, and the results are plotted in the figure (log scale).
a) How does G(t) depend on time for t <
e
?. Explain the origin of this time dependence.
b) The Kuhn length of both polymers may be obtained from the measurements at short
times: G
0

~ kT/b
3
. It was found that G
0
B
= 8 G
0
A
. The plateau modulus measurements
resulted in G
e
A
= 2 G
e
B
. What is the relation between the number of monomers be-
tween entanglements N
e
A
and N
e
B
?
c) What are the times
e
A
and
e
B
? In the limit that the monomer friction coefficient is
the same in both melts, how do
e
A
and
e
B
relate to each other?
d) Since the samples were synthesised by a bright MSc student and it is sure that they
have the same polymerisation degree, N
A
= N
B
= N. How the two reptation times re-
late to each other in this case?
e) Are the measurements by the first year student good, in other words, is it possible to
have G
0
B
= 8 G
0
A
and G
e
A
= 2 G
e
B
if N
A
= N
B
= N? Explain.

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