ME 101

Materials & Stresses - Practice Questions for Exam I

1. When a 90-kg man stands on a snow-covered trail, he sinks a certain amount into the snow because
the compressive stress between his boots and the snow is larger than the snow can support without
crumbling. Assuming typical cross-country skis are 1.65 m long and 6 cm wide, calculate the
percentage reduction in stress applied to the snow when he is wearing skis instead of boots (assume a
typical snow boot has a sole that is 8 cm wide and 25 cm long).
Answer: ~80%
2. As a machinist presses the handles of a bolt cutter, link AB carries a 7.5 kN force (see figure below).
If the link has a 14 mm 4 mm rectangular cross section, calculate the tensile/axial/normal (these are
the same thing) stress within it.

Answer: 133.93 MPa

3. See the figure below.
(a) By using vector algebra, determine the magnitude of F that will cause the net effect of the three
forces to act vertically.
(b) For that value of F, determine the stress in the bolts 1-cm-diameter straight shank.

Please see next page

Answer: (a) 568.46 N, (b) 10.08 MPa

4. The tires of the 20.25 kN sedan car pictured below are 16.5 cm wide (into the plane of the paper).
Each tire contacts the ground over a distance of 10.8 cm along the vehicles length, as shown.
Calculate the compressive stress acting at the interface between each tire and the road. Pay attention to
the location of the vehicles mass center.
Hint: First determine the reaction forces at each tire using the principles of static equilibrium (theres
only one force component at each tire). Now calculate the corresponding stress over each tires contact
area with the ground.

Answer: 340.90 kPa for the front tires, 227.27 kPa for the rear tires.
5. A steel rod with a round cross-section is fixed to a vertical surface (see picture below). When the
rod is subjected to 15.5 kN of axial tension, calculate (a) the stress and strain in the rod, (b) the amount
that it stretches, and (c) its change in diameter. (d) If the force was only 5 kN, by what amount would
the rod have stretched? As it is common to do for steel alloys, assume an E of 210 GPa and of 0.3.

Answer: (a) 137.1 MPa and 0.0653%, (b) 0.196 mm, (c) -0.0023 mm, (d) only 0.0632 mm