Mechanical Properties

What it shows:

The strength of a material in tension or compression will be affected by discontinuities in its surface structure. This can be demonstrated for glass using microscope slides, and the comparison of failure stress before and after the removal...

What it shows:

Mechanical properties of some materials change dramatically with temperature. These changes have entertaining effects on everyday objects by taking them from room temperature 300K to the temperature of liquid nitrogen 77K.

How it works:

Place...

What it shows:

A metal under stress will not fracture straight away, but will deform plastically due to the dislocation of crystal boundaries; this is called creep.

How it works:

Here we use lead as the test sample because there is significant creep compared...

What it shows:

This demonstration allows you to compare chalk’s compressive strength with its tensile strength.

How it works:

We use railroad chalk, which although being softer and harder to work, is nice and big and easy to see. A sample is placed in each...