The apparatus has been designed to illustrate the basic features of electrical resistance strain gauges and their application in measuring bending and torsion.
A cantilever has a single gauge bonded onto its surface, and an identical gauge is fixed to an unstressed piece of the same material for temperature compensation. The two gauges form part of a wheatstone bridge which has a balancing potentiometer, and whose meter is calibrated directly in microstrains.
The cantilever is loaded by the Load hanger and calibrated weights hung from its free end. A torsion bar is also supplied having two gauges bonded orthogonally at 45º. A detailed label on the unit shows the wheatstone bridge arrangement and how the specimen strain gauges connect into the circuit.
