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Tensile Testing

This was performed on Hounsfield Tensile testers (Figure ) with appropriate software, one with a 5kN load cell, the capabilities of which were exceeded and the testing was completed on a Hounsfield with a 20kN load cell. Samples used were the 20mm 100mm samples with a 15mm neck.

The software of the 20kN machine provides information on the UTS, maximum % elongation (the strain ), a plot of the stress strain curve and the stress at five points of the users choice. These were chosen at 0.51, 0.53, 0.55, 1.1 and 1.2 % elongation. This choice was motivated by the elasticity being conserved at the low loads.

The software of the 5kN machine provides information on the load at failure, maximum strain, and the load at five points of the users choice. These were again chosen at 0.51, 0.53, 0.55, 1.1 and 1.2 % elongation.

The stress, , is related to the Load, P by:

 

where A is the cross sectional area of the samples. Young's Modulus, E ( or MOE) is equivalent to the slope of the Stress strain curve in the linear region and is given by:

 

The fracture samples have been stored in a conditioning room for EMU analysis.

  
Figure: The tensile tester used in this experiment.