Testing plastic deformations of materials in the introductory undergraduate mechanics laboratory.

Normally, a mechanics laboratory at the undergraduate level includes an experiment to verify compliance with Hooke's law in materials, such as a steel spring and an elastic rubber band. Stress-strain curves are found for these elements. Compression in elastic bands is practically impossible to achieve due to flaccidity. A typical experiment for the complete loading-unloading cycle is to subject a tubular object to torsion. This paper suggests simple experiments for studying properties concerning elasticity and plasticity in elements of common use, subjected to stretching or compression, and also torsion reinforcing. The experiments use plastic binders, rubber bands and metal springs under a moderate load. This paper discusses an experiment with an original device to measure torsion deformations as a function of applied torques, which permitted construction of the hysteresis cycle for a rubber hose and various tubes. Another experiment was designed to define the temporal recovery of a plastic spring with initial stretching. A simple mathematical model was developed to explain this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]