Laboratory Information Handout

Objectives
The Mechanics of Materials laboratory presents the methods of obtaining properties of materials using standard
laboratory experiments and demonstrates the statistical variations of the properties that are used as accepted values.
The laboratory is also important for students to develop the skills necessary for communicating engineering results
and concepts through the written report.

Location
All labs are held in room AG40.

Grading
Attendance at the laboratory is MANDATORY. Missing the experiment will result in a zero for that laboratory
report. If there is a serious illness or a special reason, arrangements can be made to attend a different laboratory
session. Contact your TA to discuss the circumstances and make arrangements BEFORE you miss your scheduled
laboratory.
For lab time and report due, see the Lab Schedule at the end of this report. Late lab reports will not be graded,
similar to that of the homework. Lab reports will be collected on the scheduled date, in class.
Labs reports are to be written in groups of 2 or 3. Each group should represent at least 2 majors.

Report style
We prefer 11 pt font and no more than 1.5 spacing. Additionally (with the exception of the appendix), all reports
must include all of the sections described in the \Standard report format" below on this handout.

Standard report format

Title
Name of all authors, lab time, title of experiment, and date. You are not required to place the title on a separate
page.

Introduction
Objectives of the test, brief description of the test procedure, what materials tested, how many of them, etc

Results and Discussion

This is the bulk of your report. Here, you will present tables and/or plots, such as stress-strain curves, loaddeformation curves. ALWAYS label your plots and include units on your axes, give every figure/plot a name, for
example, Figure xx. Stress-strain behavior of brass. The discussion will typically be a comparison of experimental
results with theoretical values. Then you would try to find some reason for why your experimental values might
have been higher or lower than expected. Think about what you have done in the experiment that is not quite
ideal. For example, can you be sure that a specimen is set up perfectly? What other forces might have been
inadvertently applied to a sample? Could material defects in your sample affected your results? How would these
defects affect your results, etc, etc.

Conclusion
Normally, one concise paragraph describing the experiment and the outcome is sufficient. For example, the
conclusion could take the following form: The tensile strength of apple pie, tractor tires, and soda bottles were
tested using the GAAFOFY Testing Machine. We saw that that the tractor tires had a higher tensile strength
compared to apple pie and soda bottles. However, the soda bottles failed at a much greater strain than the tractor

tires. Despite the ductile nature of the apple pie and soda bottles, we concluded that tractor tires are better suited for
engineering purposes requiring a higher strength capacity.

Appendix
Appendices should include information which is relevant to the report but not necessary for its understanding.
Typically, you will be asked to place sample calculations in the appendix. However, do NOT dump all the columns
of information you may use to get stress, strain, etc. from your spreadsheet. For this class, you will probably never
need an appendix more than 1 page in length.

References
If you get information from somewhere other than the textbook or lab handout, you must cite your source(s).

Note: Please make sure all your group members are participating

Grading rubric
Category
Analysis
Graphs and Diagrams
Calculations (including sample calculations in the appendix)
Presentation (including spelling and grammar)
Total

Points
60
20
10
10
100

Lab Schedule
Lab number and title
Lab #1 (part a): Compression Test
(part b): Extension Test
Lab #2 Torsion Test
Lab #3 Bending Test

Lab dates
15-Jan
5-Feb
22-Jan
26-Feb

Lab report due

30-Jan
20-Feb
6-Feb
13-Mar