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Mohrscirclein3dimensions

Mohrs diagram is a useful graphical representation of the stress

stateatapoint.Inthisgraphicalrepresentationthestateofstress
atapointisrepresentedbytheMohrcirclediagram,inwhichthe
abscissa and

give the normal and shear stress acting on a

particularcutplanewithafixednormaldirection.Inthegeneral3
dimensionalcase,foragivenstateofstressatapoint,theMohr
circle diagram has three circles as shown in Fig. 1. Mohrs circle
diagram is used frequently in conjunction with failure criteria like
theMohrCoulombfailurecriterion.

Figure1:Mohrscircleinthreedimensionalcase(123)

Assumethatthestressstateatapointisgivenbythestress
tensor:

(1)

ThecenterofeachcircleinMohrsdiagramlieson axisandis
givenby:

(2)

whiletheradiiofthecirclesarecalculatedby:

(3)

forcenters , and

,respectively.Iftheprincipalstressesare

known (may be calculated by the stress tensor as shown in

Principalstressesandstressinvariants)thentheaboveequations
(2)and(3)taketheform(forthecase

):

(4)

and

(5)

Consider an arbitrary cut plane that passes through the

considered point. All the admissible values of

and

for this

planelieinsideorontheboundariesoftheregionboundedbythe
circles

and

(see Fig.1). The proof, however, will not be

giveninthisarticlebutitcanbefoundinmanyrelatedbooks.
Inordertocalculatethenormalandshearstressesactingonany
plane,throughMohrscirclediagram,itisnecessarytoknowthe
direction cosines of the normal unit vector of the plane with
respect to the principal directions. Assume that , and are
the direction cosines of the plane with respect to the principal
directionsof , and ,respectively.Foragivenvalueof the
point

lies on the arc

as shown in Fig. 1. To construct

thisarcwedrawline thatpassesthrough andisparallelto

axis. Then we measure angle

from that line. This line

intersects the circle at points and

. By using center

as

center (the only center that does not depend on ) we draw the
arc

. Similarly, for direction cosine the point

thearc

.Wedrawline

andmeasureangle

intersectionpointsare and .Usingcenter

arc

.The

wedrawthearc

. Finally, we can do the same for direction cosine

measureangle

lies on

. We

from andusingcenter wedrawthe

.Since,onlytwovaluesof , and areindependent,it

isadequatetouseonlytwodirectioncosinesinordertodetermine
the values

. The normal and shear stress is given by the

coordinates of intersection point . All arcs pass through that

point,hence,onecanuseforexample and tocalculatepoint
anduse toverifytheprocedure.
The Mohrs circle diagram may be used to calculate graphically
thenormalandshearstressesonaplane.Otherwise,themethod
described in Calculation of normal and shear stress on a plane
maybeused.

Example
Considerthefollowingstressstateactingonapoint:

(6)

Calculatethenormalandshearstressontheplanewithnormal
vector:
(7)
Solution
Fromequations(4)and(5)wecalculatethecenters ,

and

andtheradii , and :

(8)

NextwedrawMohrscirclediagramasshowninFig.2.

Figure2:Mohrscirclediagramexample(3d).

Fromthedirectioncosineswecalculatetheangles , and :

(9)

Usingtheaboveangles(weneedonlytwo,forexample and )
wedrawthearcsandwefindthenormalandshearstressonthe
plane:
(10)
We can also confirm the solution by using the methodology
describedinthearticle:Calculationofnormalandshearstresson
aplane.
SuggestedBibliography
L.E. Malvern. Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous
Medium.PrenticeHall,EnglewoodCliffs,NewJersey,1969.
J.C. Jaeger, N.G.W. Cook and R.W. Zimmerman. Fundamentals
ofRockMechanics.BlackwellPublishing,MaldenMA,4thedition,

2007.
W.F. Chen and D.J. Han. Plasticity for Structural Engineers.
SpringerVerlag,NewYork,1988.

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