Determination of Young's Modulus through Virtual Laboratory-Based Wire Stress-Strain Simulation

Elasticity is a fundamental topic in physics, yet students often find stress, strain, and Young's modulus difficult to understand because these concepts are abstract and require precise measurement. This article describes the use of a virtual laboratory-based computer simulation to determine Young's modulus through stress-strain measurements. The simulation was designed as a student practice medium that allows users to vary tensile force, initial wire length, wire diameter, and material type. This study used a descriptive computational simulation approach consisting of variable exploration, virtual measurement, data tabulation, graphical analysis, and mathematical modeling. The practice results show that wire elongation is directly proportional to the tensile force and the initial wire length, but inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area and Young's modulus. The relative uncertainty of this virtual laboratory is 0.036%. This value is very small, so the simulation results can be considered consistent. The graph of wire elongation versus tensile force is linear, indicating that Young's modulus can be determined from the gradient of the curve. These findings suggest that virtual labs provide visual, interactive, measurable learning experiences and a practical alternative for elasticity practice activities when access to laboratory equipment is limited.