Testing of Materials: Tensile properties

Mechanical Properties of Metals

Stress-Strain curve (Mild Steel)
 Tensile Properties
Classification of various properties that can be interpreted from the tensile test
experiments
• Properties in elastic region
-Linear elastic properties
Elastic Strength
Stiffness
Resilience
-Non Linear elastic properties
Secant modulus
Tangent Modulus
• Properties in plastic region
-Yield strength
-Offset yield Strength Ductility
-Toughness
-Ultimate Tensile Strength
-Fracture Strength
 Mechanical Properties of Metals
Elastic deformation:
When the stress is removed, the material returns to the dimension it had before the
load was applied.

Plastic deformation:
When the stress is removed, the material does not return to its previous dimension
but there is a permanent, irreversible deformation. In tensile tests, if the deformation
is elastic, the stress-strain relationship is called Hooke's law
σ=Eε
E is the slope of the stress-strain curve or Young's modulus or modulus of elasticity.

In some cases, the relationship is not linear so that E can be defined alternatively as
the local slope : E = dσ/dε
 Tensile Properties
Properties in elastic region
-Linear elastic properties(Obey Hook’s law, Eg: Mild Steel)

Hooke's law: It states that strain in a solid is proportional to the applied stress with in the
elastic limit of that solid. σ=Eε
E is the slope of the stress-strain curve and Young's modulus or modulus of elasticity.

Elastic Strength: Corresponds to the highest stress at which the behavior of

the material remains elastic ( the material springs back completely to
its original shape upon removal of stress(Load))

Stiffness: It is the ability of a material to resist elastic deformation(Slope of the graph)

This may be defined as the property of a metal by virtue of which it resists
deformation.
Modulus of rigidity is the measure of stiffness

Resilience: It is the ability of a ,material to absorb energy when it is loaded with

elastic limit and give back the same energy when the load is removed.
Ex: spring
Graphs
Resilience
 Tensile Properties
-Non Linear elastic properties: (Does not obey Hook’s law, Eg: cement , concrete,
plastic, wood, rubber, soft copper, gray CI etc)

Secant modulus: Ratio of stress to strain at any point on curve in a stress-

strain diagram, it is the slope of a line from the origin to any point on a
stress-strain curve.
 Tensile Properties
Properties in plastic region
-Yield strength
-Offset yield Strength
-Ductility
-Toughness
-Ultimate Tensile Strength
-Fracture Strength
 Tensile Properties
• Ductility: Amount of plastic deformation that occurs before fracture
- If ductility is high, the material can be deformed by applying stresses Ex.: gold
- If it is low, material breaks first, without significant deformation (material is brittle)
- Depend on Temperature: at low temperature many metals become brittle and can break as
a glass.
• Toughness: It is defined as the property of metal by virtue of which it can absorb
maximum energy before fracture takes place
- It is a measurement of ultimate energy strength of material and is expressed as work units/unit
volume (kgfm/m3)
-It is also calculated in terms of area under stress-strain curve
-The toughness is approximately measured as the product of strength and elongation.
Stress and Strain graph of some materials
 Tensile Properties
Ultimate Tensile Strength: It is defined as the maximum stress sustained by the
material before fracture.

Ultimate Load
Ultimate Strength =
Original cross-sectional Area

Fracture strength: It is also called breaking strength, it is the stress at which the actual
fracture takes place in a material.
-Ductile materials have fracture strength lower than the ultimate tensile strength.
-In brittle materials the fracture strength is equivalent to the Ultimate tensile strength

Breaking Load
Fracture Strength=
Original cross-sectional Area
Fracture Toughness is a property which describes the ability of a material containing a
crack to resist fracture.
 Proof stress
• It is the stress at which if the material is unloaded, there will be specified percentage
of strain permanently left in the material, this occurs in brittle materials subjected to
tension and it has no definite yield point, to locate the approximate position of yield
or elastic limit, 0.2% of strain a line is drawn parallel to the curve such that it cuts the
curve.
Fracture of materials while conducting the tensile test
True stress and True Strain
True stress and True Strain
True stress and True Strain
True stress and True Strain