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UNIVERSIDAD DE LA SABANA

October 8th, 2019

Tensile Test: Properties of four different materials.

D. Cortes Arangoa, R. Hernández Martinezb, L. Jaime Riverac, G. Vélez Sernad.
a. Material Science and Nanomaterials, Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía
b. Material Science and Nanomaterials, Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía
c. Material Science and Nanomaterials, Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía
d. Material Science and Nanomaterials, Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía

Objectives
• To perform four tensile tests for different
materials (two steels and three polymers) and
make Stress vs Strain graph for each one.
• To apply and understand topics seen in class
such as: stress, deformation, tensile load,
modulus of elasticity, etc. in a real-world
experiment.
• To appoint comparisons between the results
obtained from each material and the expected
or theoretical results.
• To identify properties of a material by
understanding the stress vs strain curve.
Introduction
A very important decision that nowadays engineers
need to take is which material should be used, this
decision needs to be taken, analyzing many aspects
depending on the required needs. So, it is important to
determine the properties of each material that its
planned to be used in the project. Some examples of
this properties that need to be studied with anticipation
are stress and strain resistance, Young modulus,
deformation, among other properties. All those
properties gave a previous information that help to
determine the application of each material in an
industrial aspect.
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Results and Analysis
With the data provided by the machine and the graphs
shown in the annexes we were able to find different
properties of the material such as the Ultimate Tensile
Stress and the Elastic Modulus (Young’s Modulus).
The yield stress is the elastic limit of a material,
beyond that point, the material behaves as a plastic. To
find the point mentioned before, a parallel line at 0.2%
strain was made.
The elastic modulus, is the linear relation between the
stress and the strain in the elastic portion, meaning the
slope between both. This value was quantified with the
parallel line, since its slope would be the same as the
elastic modulus.
The Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” is the maximum
stress achieved in the tension curve; it was determined
by looking at the graph and in the data the maximum
value for stress in that range.
The data determined were made for all the specimens
and it results, graphs and numeric values, can be found
in the annexes.

Procedure -Metals: The first specimen analyzed was cold rolled

For obtaining the information and data needed to
graph a stress vs strain curve of four different materials
steel 1020 (cold rolled), balsa wood, mango wood and
PVC pipe (rigid)) it was needed to do a tensile test
using a stress machine. Each sample had a cylinder
shape that works in the machine used at the laboratory.
The results given by the machine were Force vs Strain,
but it was transformed to Stress vs Strain by dividing
the force with the transversal area with the following
equation:
1020 steel bar. This material is made of 0.20% C, 99%
Fe, 0.3% Mn, and less than 0.05% P and S.
For this material the test was carried out with a
duplicate, the corresponding graphs are shown in the
annexes (graph 1 and graph 2). Both graphs have the
same tendency, but the stress that the bars endured
were different.
As we can see in table 1, the UTS in the first bar was
much less than the UTS of the second bar (table 2).
Even when the both are the same material and were
part of a larger bar, the specimens can behave different
because of the defects they have. For example, the bars
were cold rolled, in this order it should be noted that
in this procedure the manufacturer could have applied
more pressure to one part of the bar to another creating
cracks and dislocations which could have affected the
first bar and made it less resistance to a tension force.
If we compare both values to the ones found in
literature, we can see that the young modulus is lower
than the one reported (200GPa), for the other
properties the values are closer to the range reported
(UTS: 394MPa-630MPa, YS: 294MPa-470MPa).
(Azom, 2012).
Finally, as we can see in pictures 1 and 2, both bars
were fractured at a corner of the bar, and this could be
caused by the break voltage, which is the maximum
strain that a material could resist to strain before its
cross section contracts (Smith & Hashemi, 2006), but
also could be by a fatigue, that is the material fracture
failure that is caused by strains applied (UCA,2010).
-Polymers: We analyzed 3 different types of polymers,
Balsa Wood, Mango Wood and a PVC rigid pipe.
Balsa wood is a type of hardwood used for many
applications since it lightweight and easy to use. As we
can see in graph 3, balsa wood has a quicker fracture
than steel, and the stress it can resist is much lower.
Mango wood is a type of hardwood used in musical
instruments, chairs and tables. As we can see in graph
4, Mango wood can resist more strength than balsa
strength, even if both are types of hardwood, one of
the reasons this happens it is that mango wood has
dense grains, that helps it distribute the weight more
than balsa wood.
We also can notice how both, balsa wood and mango
wood does not have a clear plastic portion of the curve
and how after getting to the UTS they fracture instead
of following the plastic portion curve that we saw in
the steel. This means that don’t have a plastic behavior
and we could say they are brittle.
PVC is a synthetic plastic polymer used in pipes,
bottles, doors and windows. There are two types of
PVC, the one used in this experiment, is a rigid PVC,
which are used in construction. As we can see in graph
5, the pipe has a much larger plastic portion of the
curve than the other 3 specimens.
By having a larger segment of plastic behavior, the
properties such as the yield stress, decrease its value.
We can see that between the four material, PVC has
the lowest yield stress of all. The fluctuations seen in
the graph can be caused by the use or geometry of the
pipe, because this was the only specimen who was a
pipe and not a bar.
For the polymers we see that all properties were close
to the ones reported in the literature and that they made
sense considering the graphs.
The graphs can also show us how the atomic
arrangement can affect the properties and toughness of
different materials. Steel has an ordered arrangement
just like crystal, while the different kinds of wood and
the PVC are made of polymers who have random
arrangement.
These arrangements make the fractures bigger, as we
can see in pictures 3, 4 and 5, where in the wood it not
only broke in a corner, but it also made a huge crack
across the bars (picture 3-4).
Conclusions
• It is very important to determine the
characteristics of each material, when it is
going to be used. Because the properties of
materials could determine the viability of
using it or not in an industrial project.
• The stress vs strain graph can be used to
identify the tendency of a material to behave
like a plastic or elastic, and to calculate
different properties of a material such as the
UTS, the Yield Stress and the Elastic
Modulus.
• The results obtained experimentally
compared against the theoretical ones show
that there is a big difference among them.
That difference could be due by the defects of
the material when it was produced, and these
defects affect the properties of each one.
References
Smith, W.F. and Hashemi, J. (2006). Foundations of
Materials Science and Engineering, 4th Edition;
Mcgraws – Hill Book.
MatWeb (n.d.) Tropical Balsa Wood. Retrieved from:
http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet_print.aspx
?matguid=368427cdadb34b10a66b55c264d49c23
Azo Materials (2012). AISI 1020 Low Carbon/Low
Tensile Steel. Retrieved from:
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6114
Universidad Catolica Argentina (2010). Propiedades
Mecanicas: Fatiga y Temofluencia. [PDF]. Retrived
from:
http://www.uca.edu.sv/facultad/clases/ing/m210031/
Tema%2010.pdf
Annexes

Graph 4. Stress vs Strain Mango Wood

Graph 1. Stress vs Strain Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #1

Graph 5. Stress vs Strain PVC Pipe

Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #1

Young’s Modulus (GPa) 127.67
Graph 2 Stress vs Strain Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #2 Yield Stress (MPa) 301.31
Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” 427.66
(MPa)
Table 1: Properties of Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #1

Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #2

Young’s Modulus (GPa) 124.23
Yield Stress (MPa) 515.52
Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” 652.79
(MPa)
Table 2: Properties of Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #2

Balsa Wood
Graph 3. Stress vs Strain Balsa Wood Young’s Modulus (MPa) 290.70
Yield Stress (MPa) 8.09
Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” 56.64
(MPa)
Table 3: Properties of Balsa Wood

Mango Wood
Young’s Modulus (MPa) 755.47
Yield Stress (MPa) 34.31
Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” 105.36
(MPa)
Table 4: Properties of Mango Wood
 PVC Pipe (Rigid)
Young’s Modulus (MPa) 206.30
Yield Stress (MPa) 15.62
Ultimate Tensile Stress “UTS” 21.01
(MPa)
Table 5: Properties of PVC Pipe (Rigid)

Picture 1 Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #1

Picture 2 Steel 1020 (Cold Rolled) #2

Picture 3 Balsa Wood

Picture 4 Mango Wood

Picture 5 PVC Pipe Rigid