Written by Alex Undlin
Today Chris and I completed our tensile tests with the university racing team. We met Anthea at 10 am this morning in the metallurgy lab to begin our tests. The samples we made last week had come out perfectly and were approved for use in the test. We were ready to begin testing immediately, or we would have been had the computer decided to cooperate with us. But after a little bit of waiting and a couple of restarts to show the computer who’s boss everything was finally ready. We started with the fiberglass samples, which on average were able to stretch about 3 mm before breaking, but were only able to take about 6.5 kN of force. The carbon fiber on the other hand was much stronger taking between 17 and 22 kN of force to break, while only stretching about 1.5 mm. All tests were recorded for posterity, which in this case just means in the hope that something cool happened, and thankfully during the second fiberglass test both ends broke at the same time causing the middle segment to go flying. With all our data gathered and the fun part over, now we get to write up our report. Which actually shouldn’t be too bad as we already have a pretty solid outline and a good head start thanks to Chris.
On a slightly more fun note, last night in Valletta there was something called the Pageant of the Seas, which was basically a bunch of boats floating around the harbor for two and a half hours, then an impressive display of fireworks. We have learned during our stay here that one of the great loves of the Maltese is fireworks. As one of our contacts, Mario, put it “Malta is like a Mecca for lovers of fireworks” and he was right. Every weekend since we arrived there have been fireworks going off somewhere on the island usually as part of a festa, but sometimes during the middle of the week for no apparent reason. They seem at times to be particularly fond of setting them off in the middle of the night when we’re trying to sleep, but overall it has been great fun. I have always been a fan of fireworks so I have really enjoyed there being such a large culture of firework loving here.
Today Chris and I completed our tensile tests with the university racing team. We met Anthea at 10 am this morning in the metallurgy lab to begin our tests. The samples we made last week had come out perfectly and were approved for use in the test. We were ready to begin testing immediately, or we would have been had the computer decided to cooperate with us. But after a little bit of waiting and a couple of restarts to show the computer who’s boss everything was finally ready. We started with the fiberglass samples, which on average were able to stretch about 3 mm before breaking, but were only able to take about 6.5 kN of force. The carbon fiber on the other hand was much stronger taking between 17 and 22 kN of force to break, while only stretching about 1.5 mm. All tests were recorded for posterity, which in this case just means in the hope that something cool happened, and thankfully during the second fiberglass test both ends broke at the same time causing the middle segment to go flying. With all our data gathered and the fun part over, now we get to write up our report. Which actually shouldn’t be too bad as we already have a pretty solid outline and a good head start thanks to Chris.
On a slightly more fun note, last night in Valletta there was something called the Pageant of the Seas, which was basically a bunch of boats floating around the harbor for two and a half hours, then an impressive display of fireworks. We have learned during our stay here that one of the great loves of the Maltese is fireworks. As one of our contacts, Mario, put it “Malta is like a Mecca for lovers of fireworks” and he was right. Every weekend since we arrived there have been fireworks going off somewhere on the island usually as part of a festa, but sometimes during the middle of the week for no apparent reason. They seem at times to be particularly fond of setting them off in the middle of the night when we’re trying to sleep, but overall it has been great fun. I have always been a fan of fireworks so I have really enjoyed there being such a large culture of firework loving here.