Elastic/Plastic Deformation

When a sufficient load is applied to a metal or other structural material, it will cause the material
to change shape. This change in shape is called deformation. A temporary shape change that is
self-reversing after the force is removed, so that the object returns to its original shape, is called
elastic deformation. In other words, elastic deformation is a change in shape of a material at low
stress that is recoverable after the stress is removed. This type of deformation involves stretching
of the bonds, but the atoms do not slip past each other.

When the stress is sufficient to permanently

deform the metal, it is called plastic
deformation. As discussed in the section on
crystal defects, plastic deformation
involves the breaking of a limited number
of atomic bonds by the movement of
dislocations. Recall that the force needed to
break the bonds of all the atoms in a crystal
plane all at once is very great. However, the
movement of dislocations allows atoms in
crystal planes to slip past one another at a
much lower stress levels. Since the energy
required to move is lowest along the
densest planes of atoms, dislocations have a
preferred direction of travel within a grain
of the material. This results in slip that
occurs along parallel planes within the
grain. These parallel slip planes group
together to form slip bands, which can be
seen with an optical microscope. A slip
band appears as a single line under the
microscope, but it is in fact made up of
closely spaced parallel slip planes as shown
in the image.

Definition: A change in dimensions of an object under load that is fully recovered when the
load is removed. That part of the deformation in a stressed body which disappears upon
removal of the stress.
Gyroscopes and boomerangs
Circular motion
What I'd like to do now is talk about a toy I've made recently involving a rotating table. You
might think, what's so special about a rotating table? Well, one of the lab technicians in the
Engineering Faculty here said it was a very useful table to have in a pub, because if you go
into a pub for lunch you always find someone else has a better looking lunch then yours. If
you can get them to look the other way, you can have their lunch! But that's not what the table
is for. It's to demonstrate what happens in spinning, rotating frames of reference. A rotating
frame of reference sounds difficult, but let's think about a little battery-operated car. It goes
across the table in a straight line, if the table is still. What happens if the table is turning when
the car drives across? It's pretty clear that the car will go in a curved path. It certainly won't go
in a straight line.

If an object, like the car, goes in a curved path then there are forces associated with moving on
a curved path - circular motion involves centripetal forces (or centrifugal forces if you prefer).
I want to show you how important these forces are by rolling a ping-pong ball on the table
when it's spinning very quickly. You might expect the ping-pong ball to fly off, but it doesn't.
It goes around in circles (any circle, not one centred at the centre of the table). I think this is
just amazing! Why doesn't the ping-pong ball fly off? What's most amazing is that the ping-
pong ball goes around a circle which is fixed in space, not around a circle which is fixed on
the table. If I spin two or three balls all the same, they all follow different circles - this really is
quite strange.

If I spin a heavy steel ball, weighing about 1kg, you might expect it to fly off, because it's so
heavy. But it goes round in exactly the same kind of circle as the ping-pong balls. It does fly
off eventually because it slips more, but broadly speaking, what the steel ball does is exactly
the same as the ping-pong balls. It's an example of how complicated motion is in rotating
reference frames.

This talk is also about boomerangs, so I'd like to say just a little about boomerangs as an
introduction. The first thing is that it's important to note that not all boomerangs fly. Some
boomerangs are designed to fly, but hunting or ceremonial boomerangs are not intended to fly.
You wouldn't want a big, heavy hunting boomerang to fly back! It's a bit like asking Robin
Hood if he'd like his arrows to come back! So it's also true that not all boomerangs come back.
The other myth is that boomerangs are uniquely Australian. It's not true as they have been
found in China and Nepal in fossils, so the ancient Aborigines are a surviving race that use
them, but many other ancient races used them as well. They are mysterious though, and I'd
like to talk a little about what they do. The first thing that a boomerang does is to come back
by flying on a more or less circular path. So we need to understand centripetal force in circular
motion. The next thing is that the wings of a boomerang are actually like aeroplane wings, and
there is an aerodynamic lift force. The third thing that a spinning object, like a boomerang, has
is a gyroscopic effect called the gyroscopic couple. For correct flight we need all of these
things to come together.

Let's look first at circular motion, and find out a little bit about what happens there. To
demonstrate the power of the forces available to us through circular motion, I have a 2kg
weight joined to a tennis ball, weighing 100g or so, by a piece of string which passes through a
short metal tube. How can I balance the 2kg weight with the 100g tennis ball? Imagine putting
them on a seesaw. The 2kg weight would not balance the light tennis ball. But in circular
motion it's different. If I spin the tennis ball around my head (holding the metal tube) it will
support the 2kg weight. If I slow the ball down, the 2kg weight falls to the floor.

We have a centripetal force - centripetal means acting

towards the centre - the force acts towards the centre
in circular motion. Let's have a look at what's going
on. We have a mass, m, moving around a circle with a
velocity, or speed, v. Suppose the mass moves
horizontally in an anticlockwise direction. If you point
your right hand thumb upwards your fingers will curl
round in the direction the mass moves, and your
thumb points in the direction of rotation. This will be
a very useful concept later on.

The centripetal force acts

towards the centre of the circle
(along the string in the case of
the tennis ball). This
centripetal force, F, is given by
the following equation where r
is the radius of the circle, m is
the mass of the weight (tennis
ball) and v is its linear (straight

line) velocity:

 
 

What I want you to particularly notice about

this is the aerodynamic lift directed
downwards. This effect, by Newton's Third
Law of Motion, that every action has an equal
and opposite reaction, means that there will be
a lift force on the wing section.

If the air is deflected

downwards then there must be
a force upwards on the wing.
This lift force is governed by
the equation where is the lift
coefficient for the wing,
something about how good the
wing is, A is the area of the
wing, is the density of air, is
the speed of the wing through
the air, or the air over the
wing, whichever way you look
at it. Again, the force is
proportional to the square of
the speed, which is very useful
when it comes to boomerangs.
  

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Submitted by motivateadmin on Thu, 19/08/2010 - 13:50

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 centripetal force
 circular motion