Question

the product deflects elastically more when made out of certain materials than others. Why is this?

Answer 1

When a material is stresses or loaded, it deforms. Upto a certain stress called as 'elastic limit', the stress is proprotional to strain as given by Hooke's law.

$i.e\: \: \sigma \: \: \alpha \: \: \varepsilon$

$\therefore \sigma =E\: \varepsilon$

where, E is constant of proportionality called Modulus of elasticity and is a property of materials found from tension testing.

The constant E indicates amount of stress required to produce unit strain.

$\varepsilon =\frac{\sigma }{E}$

For same stress, lower the value of E, higher the value of strain produced.

So according to the question, the elastic deformation for materials having a high value of E will deflect less and materials with lower value of E will deform more.