A TECHNICAL REPORT ON

TESILE TEST

By:

ODEWOLE TEMIDAYO DANIEL

MATRIC NUMBER: 19/30GN039

Objective:
The main objective of the experiment was to test the tensile properties of two
different types of materials (nylon and steel), using a universal testing machine.
The material properties that were tested included: tensile strength, yield stress
and young’s modulus.
 INTRODUCTION/THEORY
At present, products with high durability are on high demand. Some reasons are for safety and
others are for quality of products. Tensile properties of a material are important in building a
skyscraper, railway, ships, aircraft, bridges, and many more. Therefore, it is important to
conduct tensile test on a material.
Tensile Testing is a form of tension testing and is a destructive engineering and materials
science test whereby controlled tension is applied to a sample until it fully fails. This practical
provides details of the tensile mechanical properties of a material. These properties can be
plotted on a graph as a stress/ strain curve to show details such as the point at which the
material failed as well as providing details of properties such as the modulus of elasticity, strain
and yield strength.
Some of the properties can be defined as follows:
o Strain: the amount of deformation experienced by the body in the direction of force
applied, divided by the initial dimensions of the body
o Ductility: relates to the elongation of a tensile test. The percentage of elongation is
calculated by the maximum gage length divided by the original gage length.
o Ultimate Tensile Strength: This is the maximum stress that a specimen is exposed to
during testing. This may differ from the specimen's strength when breaking depending
on if it is brittle, ductile or has properties of both.
o Modulus of elasticity: also known as Young's modulus measures the stiffness of a
specimen whereby the material will return to its original condition once the load has
been removed. Once the material has been stretched to the point where it no longer
returns to its original length and permanent deformation is shown, Hooke's Law no
longer applies. This is known as the elastic or proportional limit (also the yield strength).
o Yield strength: This is the point at which plastic deformation occurs under stress. This is
determined during testing over a measured gauge length via the use of devices known
as extensometers.
These material properties can change depending on environment, for example in extreme hot
or cold conditions.

In this experiment, the tensile testing machine is designed to pull the specimen of known
geometry at a constant rate to failure. By gradually increasing the tensile load, the specimen
will be elongated. The resulting elongation with the instantaneous applied load is continuously
and simultaneously measured. The tensile load and extension are being recorded for the
calculations of stress-strain relationship of the specimen. When specimen is set up in the tensile
test machine, the applied tensile resultant force passes through the centroid of the specimen's
cross section. Any loading that passes through the centroid is considered as axial force and can
be either tensile or compressive. In this experiment, tensile force is applied to the targeted
specimen. The experiment measures applied an amount of force gradually and observe the
change of length of the specimen which is used to calculate its nominal stress and strain. The
term stress is shown as the force per unit area,

σ=F/A
Meanwhile, strain is a measure of the deformation that has occured when force is applied to
the material. In this experiment where we assume that the specimen experiences the same
deformation over the entire length of its body, strain can be defined as

Strain = ΔL / L
From the data that results from calculation of specimen's stress and strain, some mechanical
properties such as Young's modulus, yield stress, ultimate tensile stress and fracture stress can
be determined. Young's modulus is defined as ratio of uniaxial stress to strain for the initial
straight line portion of the material's stress-strain curve, which is also in the range of stress in
which Hooke's Law applied. It is also called as tensile modulus which is a measure of elasticity
stiffness. In another word, the calculation for Young's Modulus must use the data before the
Yield point on the curve. Young's modulus is determined by

E=σ/ε
Yield point is a point on the stress-strain curve where we found a significant increase in strain
while having less increase in stress. This point is known as the yield stress of the particular
material. On the curve, it shows the beginning of plastic behavior and the end of elastic
behavior. When the load is removed at a point below the yield point, its elastic behavior will let
it returns to its original shape. But when the load is removed at a point above the yield point, its
deformation will be permanent as it have enters the region of plastic behavior.
 APPARATUS
 Tensile specimens (carbon steel & aluminum alloy)
 A Universal Testing Machine (UTM)
 Vernier caliper
 PROCEDURE

In the first tensile test, a cylindrical plane carbon steel with yield point phenomenon is to be
tested. It has an original diameter of 10 mm and an original gauge length of 100 mm.

1.) Distance marks are drawn on the specimen at regular intervals, they help to visualize and
measure the plastic behavior of the specimen.

2.) Using a hand control, the upper crosshead is moved to its correct starting position. Then the
threaded end of the test piece is placed in the lower and upper grips of the testing machine.

3.) The extensometer is swung into its working position and everything is checked to be
correctly prepared. Then all necessary testing parameters is selected on the control computer.

4.) The test starts and the extensometer sensor arms are carefully pressed unto the test piece.
This way the gauge length can be measured throughout the whole tensile test. The gauge
length is displayed at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

5.) At first, the force raises rapidly, the force then tended to decrease until the fracture of the
specimen occurred, the software automatically stop and saves the recorded data.

6.) The extensometer is swung back to its resting position and the broken test piece is then
detached from the jaws of the machine and the system is reset for another tensile test.

7.) The fragments are put back together on a table to determine the percentage elongation of
the fraction with the help of the distance marks.

8.) A second tensile test is carried out on a material without yield points phenomenon, the
steps above were repeated for the other specimen.

9.) The values of the yield stress, young’s modulus and tensile strength were calculated from
the experimental data
DATA AND CALCULATION
 OBSERVATION
 It was observed that a neck began to form in the middle of the specimen
once the maximum tensile force was reached. This is also where the test
piece fractures.
 It was observed in the end of the practical that the carbon steel specimen
has a more stretched-out neck than the aluminum specimen, making it
longer.
 PRECAUTION
 The test specimen parameters were measured more than twice using
vernier caliper to ascertain the reading.
 The vernier caliper was inspected before use. If the vernier caliper is not
showing absolute zero reading when it is totally closed, we have to minus
or add the particular value in each of the measurements.
 The test specimen was tightened orderly at grips for holding test specimen
firmly at fixed head in order to avoid the specimen becoming loosen from
the machine during the experiment.
 The extensometer was made to be in the right position before tests started.

CONCLUSION
Tensile testing is a way of determining how something will react when it is pulled
apart when a force is applied to it in tension. Tensile testing is one of the simplest
and most widely used mechanical tests. It indicates the strength of the material
just as it starts to permanently change shape. By measuring the force required to
elongate a specimen to breaking point, material properties can be determined
that will allow designers and quality managers to predict how materials and
products will behave in their intended applications.

The tensile test of carbon steel and aluminum alloy had consistent and accurate
results. It was shown that the strength and stiffness properties of steel were
much higher than those of aluminum. The experimental results for the material
properties tested of the two specimens were close to the established values. This
shows that the test procedure used was accurate and the material tested were
free of major flaws. The slight variations of the results from the established values
were properly due to instrumental error and variations of the atomic structure
properties of the materials used.