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The document describes an experiment to determine the Young's modulus of steel wire by measuring its extension under increasing loads. A steel wire was hung from the ceiling and weights from 0.5kg to 6kg were attached, causing the wire to stretch. The extension was measured and plotted against load. The Young's modulus was then calculated from the best fit line to the data using the theory that the modulus is equal to stress divided by strain.

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Morgan Parker
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26 views4 pages

Lab Template

The document describes an experiment to determine the Young's modulus of steel wire by measuring its extension under increasing loads. A steel wire was hung from the ceiling and weights from 0.5kg to 6kg were attached, causing the wire to stretch. The extension was measured and plotted against load. The Young's modulus was then calculated from the best fit line to the data using the theory that the modulus is equal to stress divided by strain.

Uploaded by

Morgan Parker
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Determining the Youngs modulus of steel.

Daniel Jose Duque Q.


9981562
School of Physics and Astronomy
The University of Manchester
First Year Laboratory Report
Oct 2016

Abstract

1. Introduction
A
2. Experimental Method
A steel wire, of length 1m and an estimated mean diameter of 0.30 mm, was hung from a
beam attached to the laboratory ceiling. A series of weights with increasing mass were
attached to the wire, causing it to stretch downwards. The distance from the weight to the
floor was measured each time. A range of data using weights from 0.5 kg to 6.0 kg is
graphed below (Section 4); when a 6.5 kg load was attached it broke the wire. It is
estimated that the distance measurements were accurate to 0.04 mm, that the error in the
wire length and the masses used was negligibly small, but variations in the wire diameter
along its length of up to plus or minus 0.005 mm were taken into consideration for the
final result of Youngs modulus of steel.
3. Theory
The Young's modulus of the wire, E, is defined to be the ratio of the stress applied to the
wire, =F/A (where F is the force applied and A is the cross-sectional area of the wire), to
the strain on the wire, =l/l, which is just the fractional change in its length, l
E = F l / (A l)

(1)

In SI units, Young's modulus is measured in Nm-2 (the same units as the stress, as the
strain is a dimensionless quantity).
4. Results
The extension

Using the chi-squared method to find the best fitting line for the data obtained
experimentally, the following graph was obtained:

5. Discussion
E
6. Conclusion
F
7. References
G

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