Notes on Beam Deflection Experiment OBJECTIVES What?

- The objective of the beam bending experiment is to determine the stiffness of a beam made of different materials (steel and aluminum) but with same thickness and area. To understand stiffness of a beam depends on which factors, and why dimension is so important in design. What do you expect? The stiffness to depend on the elastic modulus and dimension of the beam. It is expected with same dimension, steel would have a higher stiffness compared to that of aluminum. It is also expected that to have the same stiffness in a beam with same length and with a lower elastic modulus, higher thickness or height and width are necessary. INTRODUCTION Why Why are you doing this experiment? This is where you should give a background. Beam bending experiment start with What is a cantilever beam?

Go back to your statics text book and read the section on cantilever beam (give references with page numbers). A cantilever is a beam anchored at only one end. The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by a moment and a shear stress. Above is an example of a cantilever beam where load is applied at the other end. What are the other ways load could be applied to a cantilever beam? What are the applications? Cantilevers are widely found in construction, notably in cantilever bridges and balconies. In cantilever bridges the cantilevers are usually built as pairs, with each cantilever to support one end of a central section.

Temporary cantilevers are often used in construction. The partially constructed structure creates a cantilever, but the completed structure does not act as a cantilever. This is very helpful when temporary supports, , cannot be used to support the structure while it is being built (e.g., over a busy roadway or river, or in a deep valley). So some truss arch bridges (see Navajo Bridge) are built from each side as cantilevers until the spans reach each other and are then jacked apart to stress them in compression before final joining.

Clearwater Memorial Causeway Bridge over Clearwater Bay (this is my favorite bridge, include your favorite bridge in your report and explain how it is supported and where the loads are supported).

Grand Canyon Skywalk another example of a cantilever beam

A simple cantilever beam with full moment connection (like a horizontal flag pole bolted to the side of a building). Give other examples of a cantilever beam High stiffness of the material, out of which these beams are made of, is required. So as a design engineer you need to select the stiffest material for these types of beams for applications.

THEORY

End load on a cantilever beam with a single fixed support - The beam below is supported A B

at point A, and a load F is applied at the other end at point B. At point A the moment, M = - FL, where L = length The deflection of the beam, , is = FL3/3EI (in m) F = k = (3EI/L3) (in Newton) where, E (= /, where is the stress and is the strain) is the elastic modulus and I is the moment of inertia I = bh3/12, where b = width and h = height of the beam k = 3EI/ L3 = stiffness of the beam = E bh3/4L3 = structural stiffness (in N/m)
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E = material stiffness in N/m2 EI = bending stiffness = 4FL3/E bh3 The plot of F vs will be a straight line with a slope k. Also, = F/k The deflection of the beam depends on: The load. More deflection with larger load. The length of the beam. The deflection increases with the length. Material stiffness. Higher stiffness produces less deflection. Structural stiffness. Higher structural stiffness produces less deflection (which is desirable for designing bridges or any other cantilever structure)

The structural stiffness of the beam depends on: The materials property stiffness, structural stiffness increases with the elastic modulus of materials or material stiffness. More importantly, structural stiffness depends on the dimension. The structural stiffness increases with the width and the height of the beam and decreases with the length.

EXPERIMENT In the lab, two cantilever beams will be set up in order to compare their stiffness. Two of the beams have the same cross section geometry (rectangle), but one is made of steel and the other is made of aluminum. To do the bending tests, you will clamp the beams at one end and measure deflection while you apply known loads. By clamping the beam at one end you are creating a cantilever beam. Use a set of same loads for both beams and measure deflection in each time. Take the deflection measurement at least three times (i = 1, 2 and 3). For each measurement, xi, the deviation, d, is di = xi - xave where, xave is the average of three measurement. The mean deviation, dmean, is (n = total number of measurement = 3 in this case)

The standard deviation, S, is

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Plot load versus deflection for both materials. Include standard deviation, S, for each data point. Find stiffness K (slope of the load versus deflection curve) for each material. Calculate theoretical stiffness, k, for each material: k = E bh3/4L3 by measuring the dimension and using the materials stiffness or elastic modulus.

DISCUSSION Discuss all the results obtained. Discuss which material has higher structural stiffness for the same geometry and why. Compare the theoretical stiffness with experimental one. If there is a discrepancy explain why. Discuss standard of deviation.

CONCLUSIONS Make your overall conclusions about this experiment. Comment on what did you like about this experiment and what did you not like. Give recommendation about how to improve this experiment.

In class problem Beam Deflection Experiment 1. Calculate the stiffness of a cantilever beam with an elastic modulus 200 MPa (N/m2), length 1 m, width 10 cm and height 1 cm, and is subjected to a 100 N load. 2. What will be the height of a beam made of a different material with an elastic modulus 100 MPa (N/m2), and of same length and width, and is subjected to the same load as in problem # 1? What conclusion do you make after doing these two problems?

Answer the Following Questions Prerequisites for this course are ME 2301 and ME 2311. Do you have the prerequisites? If the answer is no, then drop out of this course.

What are your expectations out of this course?

Approximately how many hours per week you are planning to spend on this course? What kind of grade do you expect to receive for this course?
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