Mechanics Tensile Lab Test

This week I had to hand in a Laboratory Report. The lab was on material tensile strength, looking at the stress/strain graphs exhibited by different grades (Carbon percentage) of mild steel. The machine we used was a Hounsfield Tensometer.

A part of the report was to describe and explain the equipment used in the experiment. To accompany the text I wanted some images, but I was unable to find images that represented the equipment with any sort of cohesion. To solve this I decided to take the best images I could find, whether sketches, technical diagrams or a couple of photos taken by me, and use Illustrator to create some simple vector outlines.

These show the different equipment used from the top, the Hounsfield Tensometer, the samples used, a Tinsley Strain Measurement Bridge, Ultimate Area Reduction Gauge and Ultimate Elongation Gauge.
Below are a couple of pictures I took of the experiment at the time, they weren't too good but I did use the one on the right for the Bridge.

Finally a couple of graphs from the results of the experiments. The one on the left shows the stress/strain curves of 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.4% and 0.8% Carbon Steel, while the one on the right is the Elongation, Yield Strength and Ultimate Tensile Strength against the increasing Carbon %.