Beam Me Down : Analyzing the Data
Now that you have a bunch of data recorded, you need to convert it into a form that is more humanly understandable. This process is called Data Analysis. On your data sheets, you have recorded the total area (24), section modulus, and the total weight the beam held. Open up the graphing tool, DataFlyer, and enter your data as (x,y) coordinates into the data box. Use the section modulus as your y value and the load as the x value. When you have entered your data, trade your data sheet with another group and enter their results like you entered yours. Continue trading data sheets until you have all of the beams' data entered into DataFlyer.
Before plotting the data, though, click on Set Window, and enter 0 for both x min and y min, and then for x max, enter a number slightly larger than the largest weight, and for y max enter a number slightly more than the highest section modulus. When you've done that, click Set, then click Plot Data.
As you've seen earlier in the Explorations In Engineering workshop, DataFlyer will put your raw experimental data on screen in a nice, graphed form. As you look at the graph, see if you can see any pattern among the data points.
You should see a fairly direct relationship between the section modulus and the load the beam held before failing.