Elastic & Plastic behavior of Materials

(Mechanical Properties of metals

Ch. 6)

Lecture 6
Which material to choose?
 An engineer has a vast range of materials at his disposal:
 metals and alloys, polymers, glasses and ceramics, composites

 How does he go about selecting the material, or combination of materials, which best suit his
purpose?
 by selecting properties

 Many materials, when in service, are subjected to forces or loads.

 It is necessary to know the characteristics of the material and to design the member from which it is made
such that any resulting deformation will not be excessive and fracture will not occur.

 Mistakes can cause disasters.

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Mechanical Properties
 The mechanical behavior of a material reflects the relationship between its response or deformation
to an applied load or force.

 Key mechanical design properties are

 modulus (stiffness),
 strength,
 hardness,
 ductility, and
 toughness

 The mechanical properties of materials are ascertained by performing carefully designed laboratory
experiments that replicate as nearly as possible the service conditions.

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Mechanical Properties
 Factors to be considered include
 the nature of the applied load and its duration,
 as well as the environmental conditions

 It is possible for the load to be

 tensile,
 compressive, or
 shear,
 and its magnitude may be
 constant with time, or
 it may fluctuate continuously.

 Application time may be only a fraction of a second, or it may extend over a period of many years.
 Service temperature may be an important factor

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 What happens to material when it is loaded with a mechanical force?

Tensile Compressive  Stress and Strain

 Tension
 Compression
 Shear
 Torsion
 Elastic deformation
 Plastic Deformation
Shear Torsional  Yield Strength
 Tensile Strength
 Ductility
 Toughness
 Hardness

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 The concept of stress and strain
 If a load is static or changes relatively slowly with time and is applied uniformly over a cross section, the
mechanical behaviour of material under applied force may be ascertained by a simple stress – strain diagram
or, load – deformation diagram

Stress - Force or load per unit area of cross-

section over which the force or load is acting
Strain - Change in dimension (elongation) per
unit length
Stress and strain are considered positive for
tensile loads, negative for compressive loads

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Stress-Strain Behavior
Engineering Stress:  = F / Ao
F: is applied load
A0:Cross-sectional area before loading (Initial)

Engineering Strain:  = l / lo ( 100 %)

l: change in length
lo: original length (initial)

Elastic deformation
Plastic deformation
Reversible (For small strains): Irreversible:
Stress removed  material returns to Stress removed  material does not return to
original size original dimensions.

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Stress-Strain Test: Tensile Test
 One of the most common mechanical stress–strain tests is performed in tension
 A specimen is deformed, usually to fracture, with a gradually increasing tensile load
that is applied uni-axially along the long axis of a specimen

 Normally, the specimen cross section is circular, but rectangular specimens are also
used.

 The standard diameter is approximately 12.8 mm (0.5 in.), whereas the reduced
section length should be at least four times this diameter; 60 mm (2 in.)is common.

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Stress-Strain Test: Tensile Test
The machine
Two categories of machines are available:
Screw-driven: allows selection and control of the strain specimen
rate (de/dt)
Universal
Hydraulically driven: allows selection and control of the Testing
loading rate (ds/dt) Machine
The sample/specimen (UTM)
“505 bar” — Nickname for the ASTM standard
specimen most commonly used in tensile testing; a
cylindrical specimen, 0.505" dia. along 2" gauge
length (i.e., the length of the straight section between
threaded ends). This diameter gives a convenient
0.20 in2 cross-sectional area.
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Tensile Testing Apparatus

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 Stress-Strain Test
Standard specimen
Gauge length is used in ductility computations.

This “dogbone” specimen configuration is chosen-

 so that during testing, deformation is confined to the

narrow center region (which has a uniform cross section
along its length), and machine

 also to reduce the likelihood of fracture at the ends of

the specimen.

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Necessity of Stress- Strain Diagram
 The material’s response to the applied tensile or compressive load is a change in length or
diameter i.e; deformation.
 The output of such a tensile test is recorded (usually on a computer) as load or force versus
elongation or deformation (F - d )

 F - d characteristics are dependent on the size of specimen

For example, for a doubled cross-sectional area, to generate the same elongation, the load must be
doubled.

 To minimize these geometrical factors, load and elongation parameters are normalized to the
respective parameters of engineering stress and engineering strain.

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 Stress-Strain Diagram
ultimate
tensile necking
strength 3

E
Slope=
Strain
yield Hardening Fracture
strength
5
2
Elastic region
Stress (F/A)

Plastic • slope =Young’s (elastic) modulus

Region
• yield strength
Plastic region
• ultimate tensile strength
Elastic • strain hardening
Region
• fracture
4
1
Strain ( ) (DL/Lo)
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 Elastic Deformation: Stress-Strain Behavior
• The degree to which a structure deforms or strains depends on the magnitude of an imposed
stress

• In tensile test, if the deformation is elastic, the stress-strain relationship follows the Hooke’s
law:

• The constant of proportionality E is known as the Young’s modulus, the modulus of elasticity,
or simply the modulus. E has same unit as those of stress, MPa or psi, although GPa (109 Pa is
commonly used)

• This modulus may be thought of as stiffness, or a material’s resistance to elastic deformation

• The stiffness of a structure is of principal importance in many engineering applications, so

the modulus of elasticity is often one of the primary properties considered when selecting a
material.

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Elastic Deformation: Atomic Perspective
Initial state Small load applied Load removed

bond
stretch

return to
initial
d
Elastic means reversible!!
F
 Macroscopic elastic strain is manifested as small changes in the interatomic spacing and
the stretching of interatomic bonds.
 The magnitude of the modulus of elasticity is a measure of the resistance to separation of
adjacent atoms, that is, the interatomic bonding forces.
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Elastic Deformation

Linear
elastic

Non-linear elastic

 Upon release of the load, the line is traversed in the opposite direction, back to the origin

 Elastic deformation is nonpermanent. This happens when strains are small

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Young’s modulus of elasticity
 E is a measure of :
 bond strength (on the atomic level)
 intrinsic stiffness of material
Very stiff materials : Ceramics, steels, W …. Stiffness differences are a direct consequence of
Medium stiff materials : Cu, Al, …. the different types of atomic bonding in these
Low stiff materials : Plastics, polymer…. materials.

• The greater the modulus, the stiffer the material, or the smaller the elastic strain that results
from the application of a given stress. The modulus is an important design parameter used
for computing elastic deflections.

• A high modulus of elasticity is sought when deflection is undesirable, while a low modulus

of elasticity is required when flexibility is needed.

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Young’s modulus of elasticity

 For single phase (or, nearly single phase) materials, E is insensitive to :

 degree of plastic deformation
 microstructure (i.e., grain size, inclusion)

 Hooke’s law applied for only a small value of e (typically < ~0.1-0.2 %)
 ceramic materials follow Hooke’s law up to fracture

 In the elastic region, E does not vary with the applied stress, i.e., E ≠ E(s)

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Young’s modulus of elasticity (Stiffness)

Temperature Dependence:

With increasing temperature, the modulus of elasticity

diminishes.

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ANELASTICITY
 Up to this point, it has been assumed that elastic deformation is time independent.
That means, an applied stress produces an instantaneous elastic strain that remains
constant over the period of time the stress is maintained.
 Also assumed that upon release of the load the strain is totally recovered—that is, the
strain immediately returns to zero.

 In most engineering materials, however, there will also exist a time-dependent elastic
strain component.

 Elastic deformation will continue after the stress application, and upon load release
some finite time is required for complete recovery. This time dependent elastic
behavior is known as anelasticity.
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