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Unread 06-08-2007, 20:35
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DonRotolo DonRotolo is offline
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Re: Calculating force to bend a rod?

Well, I went and bent the rod. Instead of heating it, I decided to increase the bend radius to 1.5" instead of 0.75". I could not measure the force required, because I bent it with a torque instead of a pure bending force as originally stipulated. At the end of a 24" rod I used not less than 200 pounds, so the moment around the end was at least 400 Ft-Lb, and that's literally near the upper limit of my strength.

The photo below shows the effects of yield strain, causing obvious granularity on the outer surface, but it did not fail. A tighter bend would require a lot more force - quadruple if I remember correctly - and I am sure it would cause the surface to fail.

I did try to bend it the origianlly stipulated way, and my 5" chinese bench vise wouldn't even deflect it, even cranking the handle down with a pipe wrench to the point where I was worried about breaking the lead screw.

So maybe a bit more than 4000 pounds of force...

Don

[EDIT] Re-did the calculations with l=4.5", E as 80 GPa, c as 0.375" and I as 0.075 - deflection was 1.09 inches at 500,000 pounds of force...[/EDIT]
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Last edited by DonRotolo : 06-08-2007 at 20:39. Reason: Maybe a LOT more than 2 tons...