Bending Test

Four-point bending tests are performed in the lab on straight beam specimens of rectangular cross section. Bending fixtures are installed on the 100-kN Instron Model 4400 load frames. Load and deflection are recorded by a computer data acquisition system. Elastic and elastic-perfectly plastic beam theory is used to calculate the modulus of rupture in bending.

Notched bending specimens are deformed in this test configuration to study the effects of stress concentration.

Upper and lower loading spans are adjustable.

The unnotched beam in the start page picture is nominally 127 x 19 x 9.5 mm (5 x 3/4 x 3/8 inches).