26 MATHEMATICAL METHOD OF ANALYSIS

1.13. Octahedral Stresses. Consider at a point a state of stress charac

terized by the three principal stresses au a2, and a3.
As in the previous section, the principal coordinate system at the point
can, with no loss of generality, be taken as the Pxyz cartesian coordinate
system. Further, consider the eight inclined planesf passing through the
point whose normals n have the direction cosines

W
cos (n,x) =
1

1
cosin.y) =
±^7|
cos (n,z) = ±
V3
Although these eight planes pass through the point at which the state
of stress under discussion occurs, they may be drawn in the form of a
regular octahedron around the point for better visualization. This is
done in Fig. 1.10. The acute angles between the normals to the octa
hedral planes and the coordinate axes are equal to

arc cos —7=

= 54° 45'
\/3
2

nKLploneABC)

-" / a/
P 1

Pxyi: principal
coardinate system

Fig. 1.10. The eight octahedral planes. The direction cosines of the normals to each
plane are ± 1 / y/§.

tThe eight planes are established by taking all possible combinations of the plus
minus signs.
 THEORY OF STRESS 27

The resultant stress and its normal and shear components acting on
any one of these eight planes are, by Eqs. (1.25) and (1.26),

ft f
= + + °l
p... (1.28)

,T\ + + <r3
(1.29)
3

J V(,r, - ,r2)2 + (a, - a,)2 + (,r, - a,)2 (1 .30)

The stresses <roo, and to,, are called the octahedral normal and shear stress,
respectively. It will
be seen in the chapter on failure theories that the
octahedral shear stress has importance as a criterion for the beginning of
yielding (plastic flow) in a body which is increasingly stressed.
An alternate expression for rM» is

^oo, = 4V/2(<r, + ,T2 + ,X3)2

— f>(<T1,Tj
+ ,T2<T:, + ,T3<j\) (1.31)

This can by equating the above to Eq. (1.30).

be verified
If the Pxyz coordinate system is not principal, the six stress components
fr« <x»> T«> r»,i *m and not *ne principal stresses, may be known at the
point. Recalling that the three stress invariants [Eqs. (1.22)] are equal
to their respective forms in Eqs. (1.21), and observing that the expressions
(1.29) and (1.31) contain only the first and second stress invariants, the
octahedral normal and shear stresses can be immediately expressed in
terms of the cartesian stress components; thus,

§V2(a, +
r\,

— tI, —
t„„ = a,)2 — 6(<rIa„ —
a, + + a, a, + a,a, t'„)
(1.33)

Another form for t„,I can be easily shown from the above to be

r„., = y/(a, + 6(t', +

r,2,

— ,Jy)2 — a,)2 —
2

+ (a, + (a, a,) + r,2,) (1.34)

\

1.14. Decomposition of State of Stress into Hydrostatic and Pure-

a

shear Components. The theory of this section fundamental to the

is

study of plasticity, and becoming increasingly important in the study

is
it

of failure of materials.
The nine cartesian stress components appearing as coefficients in the
stress-transformation equations (1.5) can be represented by tensor,
a

t
S;

say, thus

tA discussion of tensors beyond the scope of this text. It will suffice here to con
is

sider tensor as simply three-column, three-row array of stress components such as

a
a

represented in Eq. (1.35).