Abstract

An electrical-resistance gage was used to measure the strain in a

cantilevered aluminum beam undergoing a loading. Hookes law was used to find the
experimental stress and beam theory was used to calculate the theoretical stress.
The values agreed and confirmed the validity of the beam theory. For example, for a
650 gram load the experimental stress was 38.85Mpa and the theoretical stress was
37.44 0.26 MPa. For part two, a rosette gage was mounted on a beam and the
strain measured. The experimental maximum and minimum principle stresses were
determined and found to match with the calculated theoretical stress values, thus
confirming the beam theory. For example, for an 80 gram load, the experimental
maximum principle stress was 4.85 MPa and 4.34 for the theoretical calculation.
Additionally, the angle between the rosette gage 2 and the maximum principle
strain was determined to be 13.61 0.091 degrees.

Table of Contents
Abstract ..i
Table of Contents ..ii
List of Figures ...........iii
List of Tables .....iv
Introduction ....1
Theory ....1
Equipment and Software ....3
Methods and Procedures.4
Results and Analysis ..4
References...8
Appendix.8

List of Figures
Figure 1: Experimental stress vs Theoretical Stress..5
Figure 2: Experimental and Theoretical Principle Stresses vs Mass.....8

List of Tables
Table 1: Equipment Used in the Experiment.. 3
Table 2: Summary of Experimental and Theoretical Stress.4
Table 3: Summary of Strain Data and Rotation Angle....6