DEPARTMENT OF

MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING

Machine Design
Home Assignment-I

SUBMITTED BY
SUBMITTED TO:
Bhaskar Raja Maharjan
Nawaraj Baral
062BME610
Mechanical engineering

Mr.
Department of

Date:2065/08/30

The behaviour of ductile and brittle material on different

loading conditions
Designing a product is a very crucial task because there may be all lot
of money and life of many people depending on the success of the
product. So, we have to consider many things while designing a product
and proper selection of material is one of them. We have to know the
nature of material before designing any product and we should know the
behaviour of the material on different loading condition. If proper selection
of material is not undertaken then there will be the failure of the product
which may cause loss of money, time and in some cases human life as
well. The materials are of majorly two types on the basis of their
behaviour on loading conditions. They are:
1) Ductile material
A ductile material is the one which shows extensive plastic deformation
before fracture. In a ductile material, the molecular bonds gradually break
and re-form. The material can be greatly bent and reshaped without
breaking (like soft metals or plasticene).Ductile materials can
accommodate local stress concentrations, and they tend to hang together
and survive after earthquakes and similar damage. The strength of ductile
material is approximately the same both in tension and compression.
Examples of ductile materials: Steel, Aluminum, Plastic, copper etc.
2) Brittle Material
A brittle material fractures without significant yielding. Brittle materials
tend to be stronger in compression than tension. In a brittle material, all
the molecular bonds break suddenly at a certain stress level. The material
fails suddenly (like glass or brick). Brittle materials have only a small
amount of elongation at fracture. When brittle materials fail, they do it
suddenly and catastrophically. Brittle materials often have relatively large
Young's moduli and ultimate stresses in comparison to ductile materials.
Examples of brittle materials: Cast Iron, Ceramic, Phenolic etc.

The manner of computing the design stress depends on the manner of

loading and on the type of material. Loading types include the following:
1. Static
2. Repeated and reversed
3. Fluctuating
4. Shock or impact
5. Random
The primary factors to consider when specifying the type of loading to
which a machine part is subjected are the manner of variation of the load
and the resulting variation of stress with time. Stress variations are
characterized by four key values:
Maximum stress, max
Minimum stress, min
Mean (average) stress, m
Alternating stress, a (stress amplitude)
The maximum and minimum stresses are usually computed from known
information by stress analysis or finite element methods, or they are
measured
using experimental stress analysis techniques. Then the mean and
alternating stresses can be computed from:
m = (max + min) / 2
a = (max- min) / 2
The behavior of a material under varying stresses is dependent on the
manner of the variation. One method used to characterize the variation is
called stress ratio.
Stress ratio R = minimum stress /maximum stress= min/ max
Stress ratio A = alternating stress /mean stress = a /m
1. Static stress
When a part is subjected to a load that is applied slowly, without shock,
and is held at a constant value, the resulting stress in the part is called
static stress.
Because max = min, the stress ratio for static stress is R =1.0

2. Repeated and reversed stress

A stress reversal occurs when a given element of a load-carrying
member is subjected to a certain level of tensile stress followed by the
same level of compressive stress. The stress is called repeated and
reversed. Because
min = - max, the stress ratio is R = -1.0, and the
mean stress is zero.

3. Fluctuating stress
When a load-carrying member is subjected to an alternating stress with
a
Non zero mean, the loading produces fluctuating stress.

4. Shock , Impact and Random loading

Loads applied suddenly and rapidly cause shock or impact. Examples
include a hammer blow, a weight falling onto a structure, and the action
inside a rock crusher. When varying loads are applied that are not regular
in their amplitude, the loading is called random.
However, here we can categorize them as two types of loading viz.
static loading and variable loading. A static load is a stationary force or
couple applied to a member. To be stationary the force or couple must be
unchanging in magnitude, point or points of application and direction. A
static load can produce axial tension or compression, a shear load, a
bending load, a torsional load or the combination of these.
Under the static loading, the ductile material undergoes elastic
elongation following Hooks law until it reaches the yield point. The ductile
material regains original shape when the load is removed until this point.
The initial linear portion of the curve (OA) is the elastic region. Point A is
the elastic limit (the greatest stress that the metal can withstand without

undergone permanent or plastic deformation. A is the proportional limit

where the curve deviates from linearity and The slope of the linear portion
is the modulus of elasticity E. Point B is the yield strength, defined as
the stress which will produce a small amount of strain equal to 0.002 (OC).
Beyond this point, the ratio of stress and strain is not linear and the
material undergoes plastic deformation. As the plastic deformation
increases, the metal becomes stronger (strain hardening) until reaching
the maximum load, giving ultimate tensile strength D. When the loading
is continued beyond the ultimate stress, the cross-sectional area
decreases rapidly in a localized region of the test specimen which is
known as necking. Since the cross-sectional area decreases, the load
carrying capacity of this region also decreases rapidly. The load (and
stress) keeps dropping until the specimen reaches the fracture point and
finally the material fails.

However, in case of brittle material there will be neither yielding, nor

strain hardening or necking. There is no appreciable plastic deformation.
Crack propagates nearly perpendicular to the direction of the applied
stress by cleavage breaking of atomic bonds along specific
crystallographic planes (cleavage planes). Crack propagation is very fast
and so the brittle material fails without giving any sign which is an
important drawback of brittle material. However, some brittle metals such
as cast iron show small amounts of plasticity before failure.

Generally, the condition frequently arises, however, in which the

stresses vary or they fluctuate between the levels. For example, a
particular fiber on the surface of a rotating shaft subjected to the action of
bending loads undergoes both tension and compression for each
revolution of the shaft. If, in addition, the shaft is also axially loaded, an
axial component of stress is also superposed upon the bending
component. In this case, some stress is always present in any one fiber,
but now the level of stress is fluctuating. These and other kinds of loading
occurring in the machine members produce stresses which are called
variable, repeated, alternating or fluctuating stresses. Often, machine
members are found to have failed under the action of repeated or
fluctuating stresses and it is found that the actual maximum stresses were
below the ultimate strength of material and quite frequently much below
the yield strength. The most distinguishing characteristics of these failures
is that the stress have been repeated a very large number of times. Hence
the failure is called fatigue failure. Fatigue failure is brittle-like (relatively
little plastic deformation) - even in normally ductile materials and thus
sudden and catastrophic! Fatigue failure proceeds in three distinct stages:
1. Crack initiation in the areas of stress concentration (near stress raisers)
2. Incremental crack propagation
3. Final rapid crack propagation after crack reaches critical size and
ultimate catastrophic failure.
Under cyclic loading, the endurance limit is used to represent the
strength. It is the stress level that a material can survive for a given
number of cycles of loading. Endurance strengths are usually charted on a
graph called an S-N diagram.

Hence, its the job of the designer and engineers to know behavior
of different material on different loading condition and choose the
appropriate material according to the nature of the job to be performed by
the design.