On a throw-testing machine for reversals of mean stress
The present research, which was carried on in the Whitworth Engineering Laboratory of the Owens College, Manchester, was undertaken at the suggestion of Professor Osborne Reynolds, who proposed an investigation of “repeated stress” on the following lines:—The stress should be direct tension, and compression of approximately equal amounts, such tension and compression being obtained by means of the inertia force of an oscillatory weight. The rapidity of repetitions should be much higher than in the experiments of Wöhler, Spangenberg, Bauschinger, and Baker—in fact, ranging as high as 2000 reversals per minute. In the apparatus employed a weight is supported vertically by means of the specimen to be tested, and the upper part of the specimen receives a periodic motion in a vertical direction by means of a crank and a connecting rod.