VICTORIA UNIVERSITY: Material Analysis for Pedestrian Bridge Design

This report details the process of selecting the optimal material for a pedestrian bridge, focusing on the analysis of steel, aluminum, and polymer composites. The study begins with an introduction to the problem and the importance of tensile testing in determining material properties, such as yield strength and Young’s modulus. The objectives of the report include evaluating materials for a safe bridge and understanding engineering data analysis using MATLAB. The methodology involves measuring material samples, conducting tensile tests, and analyzing data to generate stress-strain curves. The results section presents stress-strain graphs for each material. The MATLAB code used for data analysis is also provided. The conclusion recommends steel as the best material due to its high tensile strength and crystalline structure, making it resistant to fracture failures. References to relevant materials science literature are included.

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
VEN1104 PROBLEM SOLVING FOR ENGINEERS
MATERIAL TO BUILD A PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE
PRESENTE BY
STUDENT’S NAME:
REGISTRATION NUMBER:
DATE:

INTRODUCTION
 In this report, the correct material to build a foot bridge across the Yarra River is
evaluate and determined. For a safe working bridge, the strength exceeds 9kN/m.
MATLAB programming is used to evaluate data in determining the best material to
construct the bridge.
 Tensile testing of materials enables engineers to predict how different materials will
behave under various loading conditions hence helping in making the right material
choice or a particular application [2]. Tensile testing provide data that is used to
determine limiting loading values that a particular structure can withstand without
failures. The key design properties provided are yield strength, ultimate strength and
Young’s modulus [1].
 The properties of a material after tensile testing are determined from a stress-strain
curve shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Stress-strain curve of a material

OBJECTIVES
 To evaluate through testing and determine the correct material to build a safe
pedestrian bridge across the Yarra River in Melbourne
 To understand the basic mechanisms of engineering data analysis and the use
of software like MATLAB to develop algorithms and codes for engineering
applications

Requirements
 Meter rule
 3 material samples of aluminum and steel
 Vernier calipers
 MATLAB software
 Tensile testing machine
PROCEDURE
 The thickness, diameter and gage length of the materials samples were measured using the
Vernier calipers and meter rule.
 The materials samples were loaded into the jaws of the universal tensile machine while adjusting
them to accommodate the materials sizes by attaching the axial and transverse extensometers.
 The test to measure the strain of the materials samples began after adjusting the extensometers
to zero.
 Using a software, the data was recorded on an excel spreadsheet.
 Each sample was placed in a universal testing machine allowing performance of the tensile test
while recording the obtained data. The data was analyzed using MATLAB and stress-strain curves
plotted.

RESULTS
From the given tensile test data, MATLAB analysis and graphs for the steel, aluminum
and polymer composite materials are represented in the graphs below. Each set of
data of the material sample is plotted.
Figure 2: Stress-strain graph for steel samples

Figure 3: Stress-strain graph for aluminum samples

Figure 4: Stress-strain graph for polymer composites samples

Matlab code used

Matlab code

CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONSMany engineering applications like construction of pedestrian bridges
across a river require materials with high tensile strength. Therefore,
considering the experiment, steel is the best material for constructing
the pedestrian bridge due to its properties. It also has a crystalline
structure that enable it to withstand high axial loads thus less susceptible
to fracture failures as compared to other materials like aluminum and
polymer composite.