Determination of Young’s modulus of material by Cornu’s Apparatus

Jyotirmoy Das∗
School of Physical Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, Jatni-752050, India
(Dated: November 8, 2022)

Matter has different kind of properties. One of the II. APPARATUS

properties is the Young’s Modulus of the matter.Young’s
Modulus gives the measurement of how much force has 1. Optically plane glass beam.
to be applied to the matter to make a unit change in the
length on the unit area of the matter. In the experiment, 2. Cornu’s apparatus (Stage microscope fitted with
fringe pattern will be used to measure the Young’s Mod- XY movement micrometers and a vertical stand fit-
ulus of that matter. We will observe hyperbolic fringe ted with adjustable knife edges)
pattern. By measuring the distance of major axis and
minor axis Young’s Modulus will be measured. 3. Sodium lamp with Power supply

4. A square shaped glass plate

CONTENTS
5. Slide caliper and screw gauge

I. Objectives 1 6. Hangers, loads etc.

II. Apparatus 1
III. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
III. Theoretical Background 1

IV. Experimental Set-up 3 Young’s modulus, also known as modulus of elasticity

V. Observation
VI. Calculation and Graphs
A. Calculation
1. Calculation of Young’s Modulus by
plotting X-axis radius in Graph
2. Calculation of Young’s Modulus by
plotting Y-axis radius in Graph
3. Calculation of Poisson’s Ratio
VII. Error Analysis
A. Error Analysis for Determination of Young’s
Modulus
B. Error Analysis for Determination in Poisson
Ratio
VIII. Results and Conclusion
IX. References
Objectives Apparatus Theoretical Background Proce-
dure Observation Calculation Error Analysis Conclusion
References
I. OBJECTIVES
• To determine Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio
of a glass plate using Cornu’s method.
∗ jyotirmoy.das@niser.ac.in
is an important characteristic of a material and is defined
4 to be ratio of longitudinal stress and longitudinal strain
and is given by,
4
F L0
4 Y = A∆L
4 Which has unit of Pressure (Pascal) and F, A, ∆L
and L0 are force, area, extension and initial length
4 respectively. Young’s modulus can be used to predict
5 elongation or compression of an object as long as the
stress is less than the yield strength of the material.
5 Another important elastic constant is Poisson’s ratio.
When a sample of material is stretched in one direction
5 it tends to get thinner in the other two directions.
Poisson’s ratio is a measure of this tendency and is
5 defined as the ratio of the strain in the direction of
applied load to the strain in the transverse direction.
5 A perfectly incompressible material has Poisson’s ratio
σ = 0.5 . Most practical engineering materials have
5 0σ0.5 . For example, Poisson’s ratio for cork, steel and
rubber is 0, 0.3 and 0.5 respectively. Polymer foams
have negative Poisson’s ratio, when it is stretched it gets
thicker in other direction.
In an elegant experiment, Marie Alfred Cornu in the
year 1869 first showed that the interference phenomenon
in optics could be used for measuring deformation of a
solid under load. At that time, it was very interesting to
find that counting of interference fringes could provide
information about Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio
for a transparent material. The method proposed by
Cornu employs a glass plate placed on top of a glass
beam. When load is applied on both the sides of the
 2

glass beam, it gets deformed due to strain along the of air film between parallel plate and glass beam at a
longitudinal direction (X-axis). Since Poisson’s ratio coordinate (x, y) is given by
0, the glass beam will bend in the transverse direction
(Y-axis). Thus the beam deforms into the shape of
horse saddle forming a thin film of air between them. x2 y2
t(x, y) = t(x) + t(y) = −
When the film is illuminated by monochromatic light, 2Rx 2Ry
interference occurs between the light reflected from the
The shapes of the fringes are determined by the locus
bottom of the glass plate and the top of the beam as
of all points that have identical path difference. In the
shown in Fig. 1.
present case, the path difference will be identical for
points with a constant value of thickness’(x,y)’. Thus
the shape of the fringe will be given by,

x2 y2
− = a2
2Rx 2Ry

where ‘a’ is a constant and this is an equation of

FIG. 1. Geometry for obtaining interference fringes
Let ‘x’ and ‘y’ represent coordinates along longitudinal
and transverse direction with the middle point being
the origin (O). Also, let Rx and Ry be the radius
of curvature in longitudinal (X) and transverse (Y)
directions respectively. In order to obtain the shape
of the interference fringes, consider that the thickness
of air film between the glass plate and the beam to be
‘t(x,y)’ at appoint (x,y) in the XY-plane. First, let us
consider only the X-dependence of air film i.e. t = t(x).
The width ‘t(x)’ of the air film inside the glass beam
and the X-axis through the origin at a coordinate ‘x’
along X-axis can be obtained from,
hyperbola. Therefore, the fringes will be hyperbolic. It
is important to note that the light waves passing through
glass plate will be divided into two parts. One compo-
nent would comprise the reflection from the bottom of
the glass plate-air interface and the second one would
be from the top of air film-glass beam interface. These
two components would interfere and produce the fringe
pattern. The latter one would undergo a phase change of
π because of reflection at air film-glass beam interface.
Also, this component traverses the width of the air film
twice; therefore the optical phase difference between
these two waves (for almost normal incidence) is given by,
2π
∆ϕ = [2µ(t(x, y))] + π
λ
Where µ is the refractive index of the film, λ is the free-
space wavelength. Let us consider the fringes along the
X-axis and take into account that the air-film has a re-
fractive index = 1. If the distance of N-th dark fringe
from the origin is xN , then the interfering waves are es-
sentially out-of-phase i.e.

∆ϕ = (2N + 1)π
2
(Rx − t(x)) = Rx2 −x 2

x2n
Assuming ‘t(x)’ to be very small we can solve it to get, 2tn (x) = = Nλ
Rx

x2 It is to be noted that in the case of grating this is

t(x) = precisely the condition for bright fringes. Therefore,
2Rx
if xN +s is the distance of (N+s)-th dark fringe (along
Similarly, the width t(y) of the air film inside the glass X-axis), we get,
beam and the XY-plane through the origin ‘O’ at a
coordinate ‘y’ along Y-axis can be obtained from x2N +s
2tN +s (x) = = (N + s)λ
Rx
y2
t(y) = − Subtracting Eq. (9) from Eq. (10), we get
2Ry

It is to be noted that the sign is negative because along xn + s2 − xn2

Y-axis the glass beams bents upward. Therefore width Rx =
sλ
 3

For convenience, we define Therefore Poisson’s ratio is given by,

ρx (s) = x2N +s − x2N

Rx x2 +s − x2N
σ= = N
2 2
Thus, measuring the distance of different fringes from Ry yN +s − yN
the origin, squaring them and subtracting we get the
radius of curvature of the bent beam along X direction.
Since, it is difficult to find the origin it is convenient to
measure the ‘diameter’ (D) of the fringe which is related
by DN x = 2xN and is the distance between N-th dark
fringe on left side of the origin and the N-th dark fringe
on right side of the origin.
Once we obtain the radius of curvature along X-direction
we can calculate the bending moment from it. This is
given by the following relation IV. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

bd3 1
Gx = Y ·
12 Rx
where ‘b’ and ‘d’ are the width and thickness of the glass
beam respectively while ‘Y’ is the Young’s modulus.
The factors involving ‘b’ and ‘d’ comes from the moment
of inertia of the glass beam about an axis which is at
a distance of ‘Rx′ from the origin ‘O’ (see Fig. 1) and
parallel to Y-axis. This internal bending moment should
be equal to the external bending moment applied by the
loads hanging from the glass beam. If l is the distance
between the knife-edge (the points where the glass beam
is supported to the base) and the suspension point of the
load W (= mg) then Gx = W.l and therefore we can have,

bd3 sλ
W ·l =Y · FIG. 2. Experimental set up
12 ρx (s)

If we carry out the measurement for two different loads,

then we obtain

bd3 1 1
(m1 − m2 )gl = Y sλ( 1 − )
12 ρx (s) ρ2x (s)

Equation (15) could be used for calculation of Young’s

modulus. In order to calculate the Poisson’s ratio, it is
required to obtain the ratio of radius of curvature in the
longitudinal direction to that in the transverse direction.
In analogy with the argument leading to Eq. (11), we
can obtain Ry by counting fringes along the Y-direction
as

2 2
yN +s − yN
Ry =
sλ
where yN is the distance of the N-th dark fringe from
the center along Y-axis. Also, ρy (s) is defined as

2 2 FIG. 3. Hyperbolic Fringes Observed Through Microscope

ρy (s) = yN +s − yN
 4

V. OBSERVATION

Fringes towards left Fringes towards Right Measurement

Order of the Fringes Rx
MSR VSR Total MSR VSR Total D D2 ρx
10 22 29 22.29 6 29 6.29 16 256 57.75 10730211.82
9 21 31 21.31 6 41 6.41 14.9 222.01 54.53228 11398886.91
8 20 34 20.34 7 38 7.38 12.96 167.9616 41.02018 9799372.91
7 20 21 20.21 7 40 7.4 12.81 164.0961 40.0538 11163266.44
6 19 12 19.12 8 9 8.09 11.03 121.6609 29.445 9847826.087
5 19 48 19.48 8 49 8.49 10.99 120.7801 29.2248 12217725.75
4 18 20 18.2 9 28 9.28 8.92 79.5664 18.92138 10547031.77
3 17 33 17.33 10 9 10.09 7.24 52.4176 12.13418 10145631.27
2 16 18 16.18 11 18 11.18 5 25 5.279775 8829055.184
1 14 18 14.18 12 21 12.21 1.97 3.8809

TABLE I. Along X for m = 200g

1 1
Fringes towards Top Fringes towards Bottom Measurement
FIG. 4. ( ρ1 (s)−ρ 2 (s) ) vs s
Order of The Fringes x x
MSR VSR Total MSR VSR Total D D2 ρy
9 3 44 3.44 25 2 25.02 21.58 465.6964 100.7425 21058214.9
8 4 5 4.05 24 48 24.48 20.43 417.3849 88.66463 21181229.1
7 4 20 4.2 23 39 23.39 19.19 368.2561 76.38243 21288301.3
6 5 30 5.3 23 31 23.31 18.01 324.3601 65.40843 21875727.4
5
4
5
6
49
30
5.49
6.3
23
22
11
30
23.11
22.3
17.62
16
310.4644 61.9345
256 48.3184
25892349.5
26933333.3
From the figure, we get slope
3 7 21 7.21 21 12 21.12 13.91 193.4881 32.69043 27333131.3 m = 0.008962, intercept = -0.0007618.
2 8 13 8.13 20 45 20.45 12.32 151.7824 22.264 37230769.2 3
1 9 44 9.44 17 36 17.36 7.92 62.7264 Now, slope = m = Y bd 12 and we know the value of b =
1 15 10 15.1 11 10 11.1 4 16
4.957 mm, d = 0.237. So, we get the value of Young’s
TABLE II. Along Y for m = 200g Modulus, =⇒ Y = 26.21GP a

Fringes towards left Fringes towards Right Measurement

Order of the Fringes Rx
MSR VSR Total MSR VSR Total D D2 ρx
10 20 9 20.09 5 39 5.39 14.7 216.09 50.0225 9294407.284 2. Calculation of Young’s Modulus by plotting Y-axis
9 20 18 20.18 6 30 6.3 13.88 192.6544 44.1636 9231521.739
8 19 24 19.24 6 19 6.19 13.05 170.3025 38.57563 9215390.588 radius in Graph
7 19 28 19.28 7 16 7.16 12.12 146.8944 32.7236 9120289.855
6 18 28 18.28 7 10 7.1 11.18 124.9924 27.2481 9113076.923
5 18 26 18.26 8 11 8.11 10.15 103.0225 21.75563 9095160.953
4
3
17
17
17
49
17.17
17.49
8
9
16
29
8.16
9.29
9.01
8.2
81.1801 16.29503
67.24 12.81
9083068.562
10710702.34
From table 2, 4 we plot the curve between 1s (represent
1
2
1
16
15
16
10
16.16
15.1
10
11
7
10
10.07
11.1
6.09
4
37.0881 5.272025
16
8816095.318
in X-axis) and ( ρ1 (s)−ρ2 (s) (represent in Y-axis) in figure
x x
4.
TABLE III. Along X for m = 250g

Fringes towards Top Fringes towards Bottom Measurement

Order of The Fringes
MSR VSR Total MSR VSR Total D D2 ρy
9 4 25 4.25 23 39 23.39 19.14 366.3396 87.3 18248327.8
8 4 29 4.29 23 33 23.33 19.04 362.5216 86.3455 20627209.7
7 5 39 5.39 22 23 22.23 16.84 283.5856 66.6115 18565078
6 6 9 6.09 22 6 22.06 15.97 255.0409 59.47533 19891413
5 6 36 6.36 21 21 21.21 14.85 220.5225 50.84573 21256574
4 7 19 7.19 20 23 20.23 13.04 170.0416 38.2255 21307413.6
3 8 16 8.16 19 7 19.07 10.91 119.0281 25.47213 21297763.4
2 9 33 9.33 17 37 17.37 8.04 64.6416 11.8755 19858695.7
1 11 10 11.1 15 24 15.24 4.14 17.1396
1 15 10 15.1 11 10 11.1 4 16

TABLE IV. Along Y for m = 250g

VI. CALCULATION AND GRAPHS

1 1
A. Calculation FIG. 5. ( ρ1 (s)−ρ 2 (s) ) vs s
y y

1. Calculation of Young’s Modulus by plotting X-axis

radius in Graph
From the figure, we get slope
m = 0.01879, intercept = -0.001414.
From table 1, 3 we plot the curve between 1s (represent Now, slope = m = Y bd
3

1 12 and we know the value of b =

in X-axis) and ( ρ1 (s)−ρ2 (s) (represent in Y-axis) in figure 4.957 mm, d = 0.237. So, we get the value of Young’s
x x
4. Modulus, =⇒ Y = 34.16GP a
 5

3. Calculation of Poisson’s Ratio by putting the value of ∆m, ∆b, ∆d we get

Now, graph of radius of curvature in X-direction is r !

plotted against radius of curvature in Y-direction. ∆m 2 ∆b 2 ∆d 2
=⇒ ∆Y = ( ) −( ) − 3( ) K
m b d

Now, we know ∆m = 0.002809, b = 4.957 mm, d = 0.237

mm ∆b = 0.01 mm and ∆d = 0.01 mm
=⇒ ∆Y = 5.97

B. Error Analysis for Determination in Poisson

Ratio

From least-sq-fitting, we can manipulate the error in

slope and from error in slope, we can directly calculate
the error in the Poisson Ratio.
Error in slope = ∆m = 0.002632. Here, the error in
Poisson Ratio is error in slope. So, ∆σ = 0.002632.
FIG. 6. Rx vs Ry

From the graph, We get slope m = 0.2299 i.e., Poisson VIII. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
ratio = σ = 0.2299.
• Young’s Modulus of the material getting from X-
axis radius of curvature = Y = 26.21 ± 3.67 GPa
VII. ERROR ANALYSIS
• Young’s Modulus of the material getting from Y-
A. Error Analysis for Determination of Young’s axis Radius of curvature = Y = 34.16 ± 5.97 GPa
Modulus
• Poisson Ratio of the material = σ = 0.2299 ±
From least-sq-fitting, we can manipulate the error in 0.002632
slope and from error in slope, we can directly calculate
the error in Young’s Modulus in the material.
• We have seen that how upon increasing the amount
Error in slope from 1st graph (FIG. 4) = ∆m = 0.003203.
of mass the radius curvature of the hyperbolic
Now, we can show that,
fringes changes and by measuring the changes we
calculate the Young’s Modulus of the material.
r
∆m ∆Y 2 ∆b 2 ∆d 2
= ( ) + ) + 3( ) • Young’s Modulus is the intrinsic property of the
m Y b d
material which describes you about how much load
by putting the value of ∆m, ∆b, ∆d we get it can accommodate.

r !
∆m 2 ∆b 2 ∆d 2
=⇒ ∆Y = ( ) −( ) − 3( ) K IX. REFERENCES
m b d

Now, we know ∆m = 0.003203, b = 4.957 mm, d = 1. NISER Manual

0.237 mm ∆b = 0.01 mm and ∆d = 0.01 mm
=⇒ ∆Y = 3.67 Error in slope from 2nd graph (FIG. 5) 2. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopae-
= ∆m = 0.002809. dia. ”Young’s modulus”. Ency-
Now, we can show that, clopedia Britannica, 30 Aug. 2022,
https://www.britannica.com/science/Youngs-
r modulus. Accessed 8 November 2022.
∆m ∆Y 2 ∆b 2 ∆d 2
= ( ) + ) + 3( )
m Y b d