Memorandum

To: Brian Rice

From: Leo Steinkerchner (Seat 17), Emily Engle (Seat 22), Sean Nixon (Seat 3), Zarius Shroff
(Seat 35)
Date: 11/6/2015
Re: Materials Testing

1. Introduction
Office Spaces has requested that several materials and cross-sectional designs be tested for their
office chair product line [1]. Therefore, this experiment aimed to measure the deflection in three
different materials both experimentally and in a simulated environment, as well as in three other
materials in a simulation.

Immediately following, in Section 2, is a description of the experimental results. Then, Section 3

contains a discussion of the significance of these results. Finally, Section 4 summarizes and
concludes the experiment.

2. Results and Description

The experiment found that for any given weight, the aluminum bar exhibited the most deflection,
while the brass bar showed less deflection, and the steel bar less still. However, the aluminum
box deflected the least overall. Complete deflection data has been placed in the second
attachment both graphically in Figure 1 and numerically in Table 1.

In order to calculate Youngs Modulus for each of the materials, the size and area moment of
inertia needed to be calculated. These measurements have been placed in Table 3 in the second
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attachment. The calculated value for each materials Youngs Modulus was below the accepted
value for that material [3]. However, each was within 25% of that value. The equation used to
calculate the Youngs Modulus can be found in the first attachment, while the values for Youngs
Modulus have been placed in Table 2 in the second attachment [1].

Simulated deflection values were calculated for six materialsthe three materials tested
experimentally as well as commercially pure titanium, wrought stainless steel, and ceramic
porcelainusing Finite Element Analysis (FEA) through SolidWorks [3]. The results of these
simulations were paced in Table 4 in the second attachment.

3. Discussion
As can be seen in Figure 1, the material exhibiting the least deflection (i.e. the material whose
line had the lowest slope) was the aluminum box. By comparison, the aluminum bar showed the
most deflection. This was a clear indicator that using a hollow box as the cross sectional shape
will be more effective for Office Spaces product line. The slopes of the lines could also be used
in calculated Youngs Modulus, as they represent the value for deflection (

divided by

force (F).

The experiment successfully compared the deflection of the three different materials. However,
the measured deflection was significantly higher than the simulated values and the calculated
Youngs Modulus using the measured deflection was noticeably less than the accepted values for
each material. Multiple factors may have contributed to this, including any and all imprecision in
using the measuring devices and any pre-existing deformations or impurities in the experimental
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bars. Also, the equation used to calculate Youngs Modulus is only valid for a force applied at the
end of a bar, where in this setup the force was applied 10% of the way into the bar. This showed
some of the differences between using a physical approach and a simulated approach in
determining the ideal material; the simulation provided more precise values, was less susceptible
to error, and more accurately produced results that agreed with widely accepted values, but was
unable to predict the circumstantial values measured in the experiment. Furthermore, the
simulation relied on a tetrahedral mesh representing the material in order to product its
properties, which could affect the results by not studying the bar as a whole. Regardless, FEA
remained a better indicator which materials were better suited to Office Spaces needs.

4. Summary and Conclusions

The experiment aimed to determine what material and cross section would be best Office Spaces
office chair line by measuring and simulating the deflection in various materials. Experimentally,
it was found that a hollow square cross section exhibits significantly less deflection than its
rectangular counterpart, and that steel showed the least deflection of the three materials present.
However, FEA found that wrought stainless steel would exhibit less deflection, and ceramic
porcelain would show even less still. Therefore, it is recommended that Office Spaces implement
either wrought stainless steel or ceramic porcelain with a hollow box cross section into the office
chair product line.

Attachment: Sample Calculations, 1.

3

Attachment: Figures and Tables, 2.

Attachment: Materials Testing Script File, 2.
Attachment: Symbols, 1.
Attachment: References, 1.

Sample Calculations
F s 2 (3 Ls)
=
6 EI

(1)

Sample Calculation for Equation 1

1 2
(
) s (3 Ls)
2
F s (3 Ls)
F s (3 Ls) F
1 ( N / m)(.254 m) (3.229 m.254 m)
=
E=
=
=(5.85e-5)
=14
6 EI
6I
6I
(65.411e-10m4 )
2

Sample Calculation for Percent Error

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Table 1: Descriptive caption for the table goes above the table being labeled.

Figure 1: Graphical representation of measured deflection of various materials at varying loads [2].

% difference

observed value - expected value 100%

expected value

(180GPa 147.2GPa)
100% 18.2%
180GPa

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Figures and Tables

Table 1: Measured deflection of various materials at varying loads.

Deflection (m)

Total Force
Applied (N)
0
10.4869
20.8757
32.1572
42.752
53.6509

Steel

Brass

0
0.000635
0.001295
0.001956
0.00254
0.003124

0
0.001092
0.00221
0.003353
0.00442
0.005512

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Aluminum
(rectangular)
0
0.001575
0.003023
0.004597
0.006071
0.007544

Aluminum
(hollow box)
0
0.000178
0.00033
0.000508
0.000686
0.000864

Table 2: Comparison between calculated and accepted values for Youngs Modulus.

Material
Steel
Brass
Aluminum
(rectangle)
Aluminum (box)

Experimental
Youngs Modulus
(GPa)
147.2
83.7

Theoretical Youngs
Modulus (GPa) [3]

Percent Error
(%)

180
100

61.4

69

52.8

69

18.2
16.3
11.0
23.4

Table 3: Size measurements of the tested materials [4].

Beam Material
Aluminum
Brass
(rectangular)

Steel
Exterior Width
(m)
Interior Width
(m)
Exterior Height
(m)
Interior Height
(m)
Area (m2)
Moment of
Inertia (m4)

Aluminum
(hollow box)

.0254 m

0.0254 m

.0254 m

0.01905

N/A

N/A

N/A

0.016002

.00635 m

.00635 m

.00635 m

0.01905

N/A

N/A

N/A

0.016002

0.000161

0.000161

0.000161

0.000107

5.411*10^-10

5.411*10^-10

5.411*10^-10

5.511*10^-9

Table 4: Deflection results from SolidWorks simulation [3].

Material

Simulation Deflection (m)

Steel
Aluminum
Brass
Commercially Pure
titanium
(Ti-55)
Wrought Stainless Steel
Ceramic Porcelain

-2.40539e-3
-6..59558e-3
-4.55088e-3

Listed Young's Modulus

(GPa)
180
69
100

-4.32101e-3

105

-2.28505e-3
-2.07570e-3

200
221

Materials Testing Script File

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%Materials Testing Script File - Updated 11/03/15 Leo Steinkerchner

%Adapted from "Materials Testing sample code students" [2]
%changes shown with "%%"
clc
clear
%load the data
load data.txt;
%save the various columns of data into the correct vectors
%%added parallel commands for additional materials
F=data(:,1);
steel=data(:,2);
brass=data(:,3);
aluminum=data(:,4);
box=data(:,5);
%plot the data
%%added data to plot for additional materials
figure (1)
hold on
plot (F, steel, 'b+')
plot (F, brass, 'r+')
plot (F, aluminum, 'g+')
plot (F, box, 'k+')
%determine the linear trendline for the data
%
%the polyfit function returns a vector of the coefficients from the
%trendline and takes the following format
% C = polyfit(x,y,N)
%where N is the power of the trendline and the values
%in C are the coefficients. For a linear trendline the value
%of N would be 1, for a quadtratic fit, N would be 2, etc.
%%computed trendlines for additional materials
C_steel=polyfit(F, steel, 1);
C_brass=polyfit(F, brass, 1);
C_aluminum=polyfit(F, aluminum, 1);
C_box=polyfit(F, box, 1);

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%Now we need to plot the linear trendline using the coefficients produced
%by the polyfit function. To do so, we need to create a variable to use
%for x using linspace to create 20 points equally spaced between 0 and 60 N
%%added trendlines for additional materials to plot
x=linspace(0, 60, 20);
lin_steel=C_steel(1)*x;
plot(x,lin_steel,'b')
lin_brass=C_brass(1)*x;
plot(x,lin_brass,'r')
lin_aluminum=C_aluminum(1)*x;
plot(x,lin_aluminum,'g')
lin_box=C_box(1)*x;
plot(x,lin_box,'k')
xlabel('Force Applied (N)');
ylabel('Deflection Measured (m)');
%%changed title to reflect purpose
title('Deflection of Various Metal Beams');
%then, to label the trendline with the proper equation, using the gtext
%command allows you to click where you want to place the text once the
%figure opens
%%added text for additional lines
%%modified trendline to show slope in "e" notation
steel_str=sprintf('Steel = (%e)x', C_steel(1));
gtext(steel_str, 'color', 'blue')
brass_str=sprintf('Brass = (%e)x', C_brass(1));
gtext(brass_str, 'color', 'red')
aluminum_str=sprintf('Aluminum = (%e)x', C_aluminum(1));
gtext(aluminum_str, 'color', 'green')
box_str=sprintf('Box = (%e)x', C_box(1));
gtext(box_str, 'color', 'black')
hold off

Symbols

Deflection
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Force

Length of bar from fixed point to end

Length of bar from fixed point to point of force application

Youngs Modulus

Area moment of inertia

References
[1]

Materials Testing Write-Up. November 5, 2015. www.carmen.osu.edu.

[2]

Materials_Testing_Sample_Code_Students.m. 2015, November 5. www.carmen.osu.edu.

[3]

SolidWorks. 2015, November 5. www.solidworks.com.

[4]

Materials Testing Data Sheet. 2015, November 5. www.carmen.osu.edu.

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