Will it crush? [Video]

30 Oct 2015

Yep, I hate to admit it but this week’s blog post is pure fluff. We’ve been extremely busy the past couple of weeks and haven’t had any time to work on blog posts. After how popular crushing the pop can was, I decided to see what else I could crush in our Tinius-Olsen. I found a couple blocks of wood and gave them a rip. Check out the videos below. The blocks measured 2-3/4” x 3” giving them a cross-sectional area of 8.25 in². The first block failed at just shy of 45,000 lbf making the engineering stress in the block 5,450 psi. The second block made nearly 60,000 lbf putting the engineering stress at approximately 7,250 psi. As you can tell from watching the video the first block fails early due to the large knot in the corner. This is a perfect example of why we use factors of safety. I also included the load-deflection plots for each block for you to check out also. If there is anything you’ve wanted to see compressed with 60 ton of force, give a shout and maybe we’ll try it.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Rutledge