In: Mechanical Engineering
1.Why plastic beams are not used to construct buildings and bridges?List THREE properties that make
plastics unsuitable for this application?
2.How a temperature drop of 50 C below 0 C would affect polythene bottle? Explain.
3.What type of bonding explains function of adhesives?
4.Can ceramic materials be used as material for the beams? If not, explain why? List properties that make
them unsuitable for this application?
1. plastic beams are not used for structural applications because they are soft and ductile. Whenever the load applies these plastic beams fractures because of their low fracture toughness.
-----> low strength
-----> Low fracture toughness, low charpy impact toughness
-----> low ultimate tensile strength
-----> prone to creep deformation at low temperatures.
-----> high coefficient of thermal expansion
-----> Low elastic modulus
2.The polyehylene bottle becomes brittle due to glass transition temperature. if the temperature is well below the glass transition temperature it becomes brittle and fractures easily.
3.Adhesives forms the bond by the application of small pressure to stick the adherend with adhesive. They are designed to have a balance between the flow and resistance to flow. the bond forms because the adhesive is soft nough to flow / wet the adherend.
4.Ceramic materials are not suitable for structural applications because they are rigid and brittle. uppon application of load they simply fracutures.
-----> highly brittle (no plastic defrmation)
-----> low impact strength and low fracture toughness.
-----> low ultimate tensile strength