Mechanics of Materials: Stress, Strain, Beams & Safety Factors

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Calculate the cross-section area, the normal stress and the strain of six steel hanger rods and find the most highly stressed one.
• Turn the load-extension readings of a tensile test into strain and stress, measure Young's modulus with SLOPE over the linear part, and draw the stress-strain curve.
• Calculate how much five members of different materials stretch under load and when heated, and the thermal stress in a member that cannot expand.
• Calculate the working stress and the factor of safety of six parts, flag the ones below the required value, and find the allowable load of each.
• Calculate the shear stress in six pins and bolts (single and double shear), the bearing stress on the plates, and the capacity of each joint and what governs it.
• Find the support reactions of a simply supported beam with a point load and a uniform load, tabulate the bending moment along the span and draw the bending moment diagram.
• Calculate the area and second moment of area of two rectangles and three I-sections, the maximum bending stress under the beam's moment, and check it against the allowable stress.
• Calculate the mid-span deflection of five simply supported steel beams under a uniform load and a point load, compare it with the L/360 limit and flag the beams that are too flexible.