Beam oh Beam

A week, again, full of coursework. But this time not so much on submitting them, but more of receiving them marked.

Yeah after all the hard work (which you all have heard me complaining about).

So we had grades given for our courseworks, with comments and remarks. There was a Structural Mechanics group project which we had to produce a design of beam, to sustain a loading of 16 kN, but had to fail before 20 kN. So basically we had to have an optimum design which would not suffer any form of buckling modes under the required loading. There came the calculation parts which almost blew my head off.

But the great part of this project was that we had the opportunity to build and test the beam we design ourselves. We were given the individual parts of the beam to "assemble" by drilling and bolting them. My practical knowledge was zero because I didn't even know how to use an electrical driller (honestly, I only learned how to saw wood in my KH class). Hence, most of the time during the lab work session, I was only supervising, or more appropriately, observing.

The worst part was, after finishing constructing the beam, the feeling actually sucked big time when my intuition told me that the beam was highly unlikely to sustain 16 kN. I had so much bad dream that my beam would fail at 2 kN. -_-

Here came the day of testing. We were the 4th group to perform the testing. We felt the pressure because there were beams from 2 other groups which had passed the required loading. So here were the lab assistants placing our beam on the loading machine.


Our wonderful beam, which seemed a bit buckled even before the loading was being applied. Not a good sign. =(


Look carefully. There was actually a small chip on the top of the beam due to imperfection in construction. We planned to blame on this tiny chip to be the major cause, if our beam really failed at 2 kN (CHOIIII!!!!!!!!).


Time to start increasing the loading. I didn't think I could withstand the SHOCK if really, really my beam would fail at 2 kN. I have weak heart. Hence, Matthew went for it and start turning the wheel of the machine to increase the loading.

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Passed 2 kN! AAAAAhhhhhhhhh, what a relief! (I think at that moment I actually forgot the required loading was 16 kN)

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Don't be so gan jiong! Hasn't failed yet! =)

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Well I think I should stop typing the dots so that no one would get the false impression that my beam actually didn't fail. Hahaha... Sad to say, it failed at 9.5 kN.

So here are the snapshots of our beam which died in dignity.

The photo shows the buckling modes of the beam at failure: Plate Buckling and Lateral Torsional Buckling.


More plate buckling and lateral torsional buckling.


See! Our beam wasn't that bad afterall because many people were taking the photo of the beam at its very moment (during failure). Hahaha...... =)
Ok that's because they needed the photos in their individual report. =P


And more discussion carried out to explain the possible reasons which lead to the failure modes.


See the 4 in the graph? That is the stress strain curve of our beam. Errr... not those high flying one, ignore those. But in case you didn't notice, there was one group which failed before 9.5 kN (the curve below our curve). Hahaha... we were not the last.


So after the testing for 8 groups, 3 groups passed the required loading. 5 groups failed to. We were glad that we were the second place in the "Failed" category. Not something to be proud of, I know I know. But its important to seek for these facts to console ourselves, plaster the wound of our hearts, and try harder (and smarter) next time. Kakaka....

The funny part was that, during the feedback session for this coursework, our bubbly Dr. Wadee arranged a few awards based on the performance of all the beams.

We were lucky we didn't get the "Weakest Beam" award. *Feeling Relieved*

But we were extremely jealous seeing 2 other groups being awarded the "Strongest Beam" prize. *ARRrrrggghhhhh*

Well, its better not to mention the grade we got for this coursework because it is dispressing. But it is certainly a happy thing to hear that my Fluid Mechanics coursework got an A*. =)

Please do not misunderstand that all my courseworks are so fun and challenging. They are not. This is only an exceptional one. What our other courseworks about are only write write write. Technical technical technical.

And still write and technical. Extremely boring. Hence the complains I have made throughout the whole academic year.


P/S : To learn more about buckling modes, you can contact me. But guess you wouldn't because my beam failed at 9.5 kN. *sob sob*