Evaluation and Repair of Wrought Iron and - Purdue e-Pubs ...

151could be forged into chain link or tension rods in bridges. The committee completedmore than two thousand tests on wrought iron bar material from nineteen differentmanufacturers in the United States. Half of these tests were standard tensile tests wherethe bar specimens were pulled monolithically and resulted in a determination of thetensile strength and other material properties.Table A.4 lists a summary of the results of 959 tensile tests that Beardsleeperformed on different wrought iron bars from different manufacturers that were notrevealed but labeled with a corresponding letter. In this testing he reported the diameter(size) of the bar tested in inches, the name of the iron (manufacturer), the fracturestrength (lbs), the tensile limit (psi), and the elastic limit (psi) were reported. The elasticlimit correlates to a modern day yield strength, but is not as accurate. Beardslee simplyrecorded the load where the first noticeable stretch occurred while testing each specimen.Some of these values were not available for every test due to this inexact method.Percent Elongation was not determined in this set of testing performed by Beardslee.Table A.5 lists the detailed testing results that were completed by Beardslee andthe rest of the committee appointed by U.S. Grant on other iron bars. This table includesthe diameter, original length, percent elongation (per original length), elastic limit (psi),and tensile strength (psi). The manufacturer of each bar tested was not recorded from theoriginal due to the fact that they were unknown and the large amount of data that had tobe collected. The elastic limit and tensile limit were found in the same manner asdescribed in Table A.4. The percent elongation was found by dividing the fracturedlength by the original length.Tables A.6 and A.7 consist of wrought iron tensile strength data that was reportedby Fairbairn (1869) and Humber (1870) respectively. These sources are generalhandbooks that discuss basic concepts of building with wrought iron. In these sourcesthe manufacturer and type of iron that could purchased during the late 19 th century werelisted along with the tensile strength found from testing their material.