EVERYDAY SCIENCE - MATERIALS

Question 2

The mayor of a city wanted to build a bridge across a river. He asked Churros for help to find a suitable material for building the bridge. Churros decided that he will mix fibre into cement to create a fibre-concrete material. He made 3 samples of the material using different proportions of fibre. He then carried out two experiments as shown.

Experiment 1: Weights are added onto the material until it breaks. The total mass of weights added will be recorded.

Experiment 1: Weights are added onto the material until it breaks. The total mass of weights added will be recorded.

Experiment 2: A robotic arm pushes downwards with a force of 1000 Newtons. The material will bend and the distance moved by the material will be measured and recorded.

Experiment 2: A robotic arm pushes downwards with a force of 1000 Newtons. The material will bend and the distance moved by the material will be measured and recorded.

Answer 1

Fill in the blanks with the keywords provided below.
[distance] • [support] • [stiffest] • [strength] • [weak] • [bent] • [thickness]

a) Which material property is experiment 1 testing for? Explain why this property is important for building the bridge.

Answer:

. The material has to be strong in order to heavy loads (for example, people and vehicles) without breaking. If the material is , the bridge could break and people could fall.


b) List 2 things in experiment 1 that needs to be kept the same in order for it to be a fair test.

Answer:

The of the fibre-concrete material.

The between the brick supports.


c) Churros obtained the following results for experiment 2.


Concrete A Concrete B Concrete C
Distance moved by the material (cm) 1 cm 1.5 cm 0.5 cm

Fill in the blanks.
Answer:

Concrete (answer either A,B or C) is the most flexible because it the most when the robotic arm pushed down on it.

Concrete C is the material.




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“Memory-retaining metal rods and bendable concrete are being used to build the world’s first flexible bridge in Seattle, US!”