Hello Learners, now let us see a practical tensile test of a mild steel specimen in our L & T’s State of

art testing laboratory.

This is the tensile testing machine that we have in our laboratory. It is a latest machine which also
has Loading unit & control unit.

This is the loading unit

But here we have only upper head and bottom head.

This the control unit. Here all the loading action is done through computer attached to it.

Now We will see the preparation of specimen, this is the specimen that we are going to test. This is a
mild steel rod. This is cleaned and gauge length is measure. Before measuring the gauge length we
will measure the diameter of the rod using Vernier calliper. It is a digital Vernier calliper.

The diameter is measured to be ____mm. Now to the gauge length. We know that gauge length is
5.65 square root of A. Which will come around 5 times the diameter. So Gauge length is 5 x ____ =
mm. Now we will mark the gauge length in the specimen with punching tool.

Here we have marked at every 2.5 D interval. This is done because we don’t know exactly where the
necking and failure is going to happen. By measuring multiple points, with the failure position
happening at that point. It is easy to calculate the elongated length.

Now range of load applied. Here the machine can apply tensile load upto ___________kN. Since it is
______mm diameter. The load increment is at the rate of _______kN.

Now we will place the specimen. Specimen is placed by releasing the bottom head first and then
locking then release the top head and position it and lock it with this controller.

The top head is moved up and down by operating this controller.

Now we have placed the specimen. Now in this method we are not going to use extensometer.
Whereas the LVDT (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) is attached to the instrument which will
record the extension with respect to the movement of top head while applying the tensile load.

Now We shall start applying the load, Here we have a software by testing machine vendor, where we
need to initiate the experiment by clicking the button.

Here also we feed the Initial area as an input.

Now let us start loading the specimen.

Now you can see loading occurs with an increment of _____kN

As and when the loading increases it can be noticed the graph is being plotted simultaneously. Now
loading keeps on increasing.

Now u can notice the load remains stationary for some instance which means that the strain
hardening is happening. The initiation of this stationary loading indicates the yield point.

Now, You can see the reading reduced even as loading is increased.

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 Now the specimen broke. The load at which the specimen broke is called as breaking load. The
maximum load after which the reading drops is ultimate load. This is onset of necking in rod.

No the specimen is meticulously taken out.

Now we will measure the diameter of neck. With this we can calculate the Neck area and find actual
breaking stress.

Now to measure change in length. Necking happened between this gauge length marking. So
measuring this length would give the change in length with which percentage of elongation is
measured.

Sensitivity: LNT Construction Internal Use