Chapter 16 TENSILE TESTING $16.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION $16.1.1 Introduction The mechanical response of a metal can be studied under a variety of regimes; they are described in the various chapters in Part IV of this book ‘The mechanical strength under a steadily increasing load is determined in uniax- ial tensile tests, compression (upsetting) tests, bend tests, shear tests, plane- strain tensile tests, plane-strain compression (Ford) tests, torsion tests, biaxial tests. The uniaxial tensile test consists of extending a specimen whose longitudinal dimension is substantially larger than the two lateral dimensions (Fig. 16.1(a)]. The upsetting test consists of compressing a cylinder between parallel platens; the height/diameter ratio has to be lower than a critical value in order to eliminate the possibility of instability (buckling) (Fig. 16.1(b)]. After a certain amount of strain, “barreling” takes place, destroying the state of uniaxial com- pression. The stress analysis is presented in Section 2.5.7. The three-point bend test is one of the most common bending tests. A specimen is simply placed between two supports; a wedge advances and bends it through its middle point [Fig. 16.1(c)]. Plane-strain tests simulate the conditions encountered by a metal in, for instance, rolling. Loading is imparted in such a way as to result in zero strain along one direction. The two most common geometries are shown in Fig. 16.1(d) and (¢). In the tensile mode, two grooves are made parallel to each other, on opposite sides of a plate. The width of the plate is much greater than its thickness in the reduced thickness region; hence, flow is restricted int e Figure 16.1 Common tests used to determine the monotonic strength of metals: (a) uniaxial tensile test; (b) upsetting test; (c) three-point bending test; (4) plane-strain tensile test; (e) plain-strain compression (Ford) test; (f) torsion test; (g) biaxial test. the width direction. In the compressive mode (Ford test) a parallelepiped of metal is machined and inserted between the groove-and-punch setup of Fig. 16.1). As the top punch is lowered, the specimen is plastically deformed. Strain is restricted in one direction. In the torsion tests [Fig. 16.1(f)] the cylindri- cal (or tubular) specimen is subjected to a torque and undergoes an attendant angular displacement. One of the problems in the analysis of the torsion test is that the stress varies as a distance from the central axis of the specimen. ‘The biaxial test is usually applied to thin sheets and one of the configurations is shown in Fig. 16.1(g). Other configurations are testing a tubular specimen in tension with an intemal pressure or in tension with torsion. Chapter 18 (Section 18.4) provides a more detailed description of the biaxial test. The results of tests described above can be expressed graphically as stress versus strain curves. They can be compared directly by using effective stresses and effective strains. These are defined in Sections 1.10.7 and 1.11.4. This chapter deals only with the tensile tests, since they are by far the ‘most common monotonic strength tests for metals. In the tensile test, one applies an external load P so that the specimen is, macroscopically, in a state of uniaxial stress. Due to the anisotropy of the individual grains, the state of stress is not uniaxial at the microscopic level; stress and strain inhomogeneities establish themselves inside the individual grains. However, in the treatment given here, these localized variations are not considered. The state of stress is described byou 0 0 o oO °) (16.1) 0 090, Applying Eqs. 1.11, one obtains the corresponding strains, in the elastic regime, for an isotropic material: 0 0 vou o -u . 7 0 (16.2) vou ° E There are no shear stresses or strains along the system of reference defined by the tensile axis. However, along any other directions these are shear stresses and strains, which can be found by transforming the reference system or applying Schmid’s law. The specific details on specimen dimensions, strain rates, gripping systems, and so on, are given in a number of ASTM standards.!~*l This chapter restricts itself to a description of the fundamentals. Prior to conducting a tensile test, the ASTM standards should be consulted. Results of tests conducted under nonstandard conditions should not be directly compared with those of standard tests. When reporting the strength of an alloy, standard specimens and conditions should be used whenever possible. There are essentially two types of machines used in tensile testing: (1) screw-driven machines, in which the velocity of the cross-head is constant (Fig. 1.1), and (2) servohydraulic machines, which are the most modern ones. One sometimes finds (especially in the “mining schools”) hydraulic machines in which the movement of the cross head is produced by a hydraulic cylinder; they do not possess servocontrols and should be avoided if more modern machines are available. A modern servohydraulic testing machine is shown in Fig. 16.2, cou- pled with a computer. There is always some degree of interaction between the machine and the specimen. Therefore, we cannot directly convert the cross-head motion velocity into deformation of the specimen without appropriate corrections. The reason for this is that the machine is also elastically deformed when the specimen is being tested. Hence, the rate at which the strain is applied to the specimen is lower than the velocity of the cross-head motion when no load is being applied. It is possible to determine the “stiffness” of the machine if we know the slope of the load-extension curve (linear portion) and the stiffness of the specimen. Figure 16.3 shows a direct load-extension curve. The linear portion has slope Kz. However, if we compute the stiffness of the specimen from its dimensions and elastic modulus, we obtain Kupec = Ky = "4 (16.3) Chap. 16 Tensile Testing 561