Stress-Strain Diagram

Stress-Strain Curves for Ductile Materials

If a ductile bar of uniform cross-sectional area is subjected to gradually increasing
axial tensile force (generally is done in Universal Testing Machine) till failure of the bar
occurs, when the stress-strain curve plots the curve may be divided into following parts:

Stress-Strain curve in ductile materials

Portion OA: This portion is absolutely straight, where the stress is proportional to strain
and the material obeys Hooke’s law (σ =E ϵ). The value of stress at point A is called
proportional limit.
Portion AB: In this portion, Hook’s law is not obeyed, although the material may still
be elastic. The point B indicates the elastic limit.
Portion BC: In this portion, the metal shows a strain even without increase in stress and the
strain is not fully return when load is removed.
Portion CD: Yielding start in this portion and there is a drop of stress at the point D
directly after yielding begins at C. The point D is termed as lower yield point and C is called
upper yield point.
Portion DE: After yielding has taken place at D, further straining takes place at this portion
by increasing the stress and the stress–strain curve continues to rise up to the point E. Strain
in this portion is about 100 times that of portion O-A. At the point E,
the bar begins to form a local neck. The point E is termed as ultimate tensile stress point.
Portion EF: In this portion, the load is falling off from the maximum and fracture at F
takes place. The point F is termed as fracture or breaking point and the identical stress is
called breaking stress.
 2-Stress Strain Curves for Brittle Materials
Materials which show very small elongation before they fracture are called brittle
materials. The shape of curve for high carbon steel, concrete and high strength light alloys or
any brittle materials is shown in fig. 3. For most brittle materials the permanent elongation
(i.e. increase in length) is less than 10%.
Principal mechanical properties
The characteristics of the materials which describe their behaviour under external
loads are known as Mechanical Properties.
Some mechanical properties are:
1 -Elasticity
Elasticity of a material is power of coming back to original position when the stress or
load is removed. The greatest stress that a material can withstand without permanent
distortion is called elastic limit.
2- Plasticity
The plasticity of a material is ability to undergo some permanent deformation without
failure. Plastic deformation will take place only after the elastic range has been exceeded,
beyond (point c). Plasticity is an important property and widely used in several mechanical
processes like forming, shaping, extruding and many other hot and cold working processes.
In general, plasticity increases with increasing temperature. Due to this property various
metals can be transformed into different products of required shape and size. This conversion
into desired shape and size is effected either by the application of pressure or heat or both.
3- Ductility
Ductility of a material their enables to draw out into thin wire with application the
load. Ductile material such as mild steel, wires of gold, silver, copper, aluminium, etc. are
drawn by extrusion or by pulling through a hole in a die due to the ductile property.
The ductility decreases with increase of temperature. The percent elongation and the reduction
in area in tension are often used as empirical measures of ductility.
4-Strength
It is the resistance offered by a material when subjected to external loading, so stronger
the material can be withstand with greater the load. Depending upon the type of load applied
the strength can be tensile, compressive, shear or torsional strength. The maximum stress that
any material will withstand before destruction is called its ultimate strength (point E as shown
in Fig. 1).
5- Brittleness
The brittleness of a material is the property of breaking without much permanent
distortion. There are many materials, which break or fail before much deformation take
place, such as glass, cast iron, etc. Therefore, a non-ductile material is said to be a brittle
material. A brittle material should not be considered as lacking in strength, it is only shows
the lack of elasticity. On stress-strain diagram, these materials don’t have yield point and
value of E is small.
6- Toughness
The toughness of a material is ability to withstand both plastic and elastic
deformations. It is a highly desirable quality for structural and machine parts to withstand to
shock and vibration. Manganese steel, mild steels are tough materials. For Ex: If a load is
suddenly applied to a piece of mild steel and then to a piece of glass the mild steel will
absorb much more energy before failure occurs. Thus, mild steel is said to be much tougher
than a glass.
7- Hardness
Hardness is closely related to strength. It is the ability of a material to resist
scratching, abrasion, penetration with apply external load.
8- Stiffness (Rigidity)
The resistance of a material to deflection is called stiffness or rigidity. Steel is stiffer or
more rigid than Aluminium. Stiffness is measured by Young’s modulus E. The higher value
of the Young’s modulus this mean stiffer the material. E is the ratio of stress over strain and
is given by the slope of line O–A.

Materials Behaviors In Stress Strain Curve

 For Brittle Materials:
Brittle Materials:
Brittle materials are those which break suddenly under stress at a point just beyond
elastic limit. They have little or no yielding before failure and their percentage of elongation is
very low. If percentage elongation is equal to or less than 5%, we consider that material brittle.
Brittle materials include glass, concrete, cast iron and plaster. Above graph shows that gray cast
iron exhibit less plastic region i.e it fractures just after elastic limit so it is a brittle material.

Fig. Stress Strain Diagram for Brittle Materials

Different Regions under Area of Stress Strain Curve:
This is the general diagram of stress strain curve, which elaborates different regions
under stress strain curve.

1. Elastic region:
Elastic region is the area under the curve from initial point to elastic limit. In this region
material will return to its original size and shape when load is removed from the body.
 2. Plastic region:
Plastic region is the area under curve which starts from elastic limit to fracture point.
Under the area body shows plastic behavior i.e. when the load is removed from body, it does
not come back to its original size and shape.
3. Yielding region:
This region starts from elastic limit to yield point where the body produces strain with a
little or no increase in load.
4. Strain Hardening;
Area from upper yield point to ultimate tensile stress is called strain hardening. Under
this area the body will elongate only with increasing the stress until the stress is at maximum
point whereas the cross sectional area will decrease uniformly.
5. Necking:
Necking covers the area from ultimate tensile stress to fracture point. It is the region
where cross sectional area of material will decrease in a localized spot and capacity of material
to carry load will decrease. In necking region, stress strain curve has neck like curve.
Different Points On Stress Strain Curve:
1. Proportional Limit (σPL)
Like ductile material, proportional limit of brittle material (gray cast iron) is the point
on stress strain curve which shows the highest stress at which Stress and Strain are linearly
proportional to each other where the proportionality constant is E known as modulus of
elasticity. Above this point, stress is no longer linearly proportional to strain. It is difficult to
determine the point at which the limit of proportionality occurs, but it is approximately 200
MPa. It is denoted by σPL.
2. Elastic Limit (σEL)
Like ductile materials, elastic limit of brittle material is the point which shows the
maximum stress that can be applied to the body without resulting in permanent deformation
when stress is removed. As shown in graph when the load is removed from gray cast iron (at
elastic limit), it returns to original size and shape. At elastic limit stress is no longer linearly
proportional to strain. It is denoted by σEL.
3. Ultimate Yield Stress (σY)
Ultimate tensile stress is the ratio of ultimate load to original area of cross-section. At
this point gray cast iron will have little permanent deformation and just after this point, gray
cast iron fracture. We can say that yield point is the ultimate stress or breaking stress for gray
cast iron. It is denoted by σY. For gray cast iron, it occurs at 250 MPa. For brittle materials
yield point is not well defined.