Mechanical Properties and

Testing

Siddharth Modi
Department of Chemical Engineering
Dharmsinh Desai University
Nadiad, 387 001
 Mechanical Properties
• Isotropy and Anisotropy:
– The body of the material is continuous,
homogeneous and isotropic.
– Continuous body: Does not contain any kind of
empty space or voids.
– Homogeneous: It has identical properties at all
points.
– Isotropic: A body is said to be isotropic when
the property does not vary with direction or
orientation
– Anisotropic: opposite to Isotropic body
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 Stress

Stress is counter
force against the
applied force.

• According to nature of applied load, there are three types of

stress:
1. Tensile stress
2. Compressive stress
3. Shear stress
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 Tensile Stress
• In tensile stress,
the stress state leading to
expansion,

– The length of a material

tends to increase in
the tensile direction.

– The volume of the

material stays constant.

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 Compressive Stress
• Compressive stress is the stress on materials that
leads to a smaller volume.
• By compressive stress the material is
undercompression.
• Compressive stress to bars, columns, etc. leads to
shortening.
• One can increase the compressive stress until
compressive strength is reached.

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 Shear Stress
• Shear stress is a stress state
where the stress is parallel
to the surface of the
material, as opposed to
normal stress when
the stress is vertical to the
surface.
• Shear stress is relevant to
the motion of fluids upon
surfaces, which result in
the generation of shear
stress. 6
 Strain
• The change per unit length, i.e., the ratio of he change in length
to the original length, is called the strain.

• Types of strain are as follows:

1. Tensile strain
2. Compressive strain
3. Shear strain
4. Volumetric strain 7
 Volumetric Strain
• The volumetric strain is the unit change in
volume, i.e. the change in volume divided by
the original volume.

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Hook’s Law and Modulus of Material

• In the elastic region of the material, the relation between

stress and the corresponding strain is governed by Hook’s
law which states that stress is proportional to strain and
independent of time.
Stress (σ) α Strain (ε)
• Hook’s law is applied to most elastic materials for very
small strains.
• In isotropic material each stress will induce
corresponding strain, while in an anisotropic material a
single stress component may produce more than one type
of strain.
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Hook’s Law and Modulus of Material

• The proportionality constant is known as modulus of

material.
• It differs material to material and type of stress for the same
material.
• In tensile and compressive stress it is called the modulus
of elasticity or Young modulus (E).
• In shear stress, known as modulus of rigidity (G).
• In volumetric distortion, known as bulk modulus (K).

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Engineering Stress-Strain Curves

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 Engineering Stress-Strain Curves
Steel Cement

Rubber
PoP

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Fundamental Properties
(Qualitative Properties)

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 Strength
− Capacity to withstand destruction under the action of
external loads.
− The stronger the material the greater the load it can
withstand.
− It determines the ability of a material to withstand stress
without failure.
− Strength strongly depends on the types of bonding
between the molecules or atoms.
− (1) Covalent (2) Ionic (3) Metallic (4) Molecular
bonding.

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 Elasticity
– Ability of the material to regain its original
position after deformation while the stress or
load is released.
– The recoverable nature of the elastic deformation
• Stores elastic energy in solids
• Releases it under controlled condition
– The elastic behavior of the material which shows
the extent to which material can be deformed.

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 Stiffness
– The resistance of the material to elastic
deformation or deflection.
– A material which suffers a slight deformation
under the action of load has a high degree of
stiffness.
– Steel is more stiffer than aluminum as it deflect
further for long exposure of load.

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Stiffeners in Civil Construction

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Stiffening Rings in Pressure Vessels

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Buckling Safety Factor Vs.
Stiffening Ring Thickness

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 Resilience
– The capacity of the material to absorb energy
elastically.
– When body is loaded without exceeding the elastic limit,
it changes its dimensions and regain its original
dimensions after removal of load.
– Resilience strongly depends on the elastic limit.
– Internal energy of the body makes it in position of the
elongation.
– When this stored energy is given off, body regain its
original position.

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 Resilience
– The maximum energy which can be stored in a
body up to elastic limit is called the proof
resilience.
– The proof resilience per unit volume is called as
the modulus of resilience.
– Material with high resilience is used for spring.
– Annealed copper shows lower elastic limit while
cold worked copper shows higher elastic limit.

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 Plasticity
– Ability of the material to undergo permanent
deformation without rupture.
– It will take place only after the elastic limit has
been exceeded.
– Plasticity increase with increasing temperature.
– Clay and lead are plastic in nature at room
temperature while steel is plastic at high
temperature.
– Plasticity is an important property in,
• Forming, shaping and extruding operations.
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 Ductility
– It is the property of the material which enables it
to draw into thin wires.
– Percentage elongation and reduction in cross
sectional area in tension are often used as
empirical measures of ductility.
– Mild steel is a ductile material.

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• Malleability:
– Ability of the material to be drawn into their
sheets without cracking by pressing, rolling or
hammering.
– Aluminum, copper, tin, lead etc.
• Toughness:
– Ability of the material to withstand both plastic
and elastic deformation.
– Mild steel is much tougher than glass.
– It is highly desirable quality for structural and
machine parts which have to withstand shock and
vibration.
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 Hardness
– Ability of a material to resist scratching,
abrasion, cutting or penetration.
– It is difficult to define as it is closely related with
structure, composition and other mechanical
property.
– Hardenability is the degree of hardness that can
be imparted to a metal particularly steel, by the
process of hardening.
– Hardness is associated with strength, while
hardenability is connected to the transformation
characteristics of a metal or alloy.

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 Brittleness

– Lack of ductility is commonly known as

brittleness.
– Property of breaking or shattering without much
permanent distortion is known as brittleness.
– i.e. glass, cast iron etc.
– Material becoming brittle at high temperature is
known as hot –shortness (caused by high Sulphur
in ferrous metals) and material becoming brittle at
low temperature is known as cold-shortness
(observed in most of materials).
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 FATIGUE
• The term “fatigue” is used to describe the failure of
a material under a repeatedly applied stress.
• Fatigue must be considered in machine components
subjected to continuously cyclic loading such as
– motor shafts, springs, bolts, gear teeth, valves, turbine
blades, gas engine parts, wire ropes etc.
• Almost 80 to 90 % of the total failure of high speed
machine parts is due to fatigue.

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 Mechanism of Fatigue Failure
• Fatigue failure almost invariably begins at
irregularities on the surface of metals, which acts as
stress raisers and at points of high stress or stress
concentration.
• The basic mechanism in fatigue is slip.
• Commercial metals are composed of aggregation of
small crystals with random orientations.
• Unfavorable orientation permits slip to occur.

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Mechanism of Fatigue Failure Continue…
• Movement weakens the elements to such an extent
that it ruptures and microscopic crack or a series of
such crack originates on the surface of the piece.
• Thus fatigue is neither sudden nor hidden.
• Hence fatigue is often referred as “progressive
fracture”.
• The sequence of events makes it clear that fatigue is a
result of a cumulative process involving slip.

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 Fatigue Strength
• The stress at which a metal fails by fatigue is
termed as fatigue strength.
• It is found that for most materials there is a limiting
stress below which a load may be repeatedly applied
an indefinitely large number of times without causing
failure.
• This limiting stress is called endurance limit or
fatigue limit.
• The magnitude of endurance limit depends upon the
kind of stress variation to which the material is
subjected. 30
 • Fatigue fracture
surface in a steel shaft
• Showing the initiation
region, the
propagation of fatigue
crack, and finally
resulting into
catastrophic rupture
• When the crack
length exceeds a
critical value at the
applied stress

endurance limit
Endurance ratio   0.5
tensile strength
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 Factors Affecting Fatigue Strength
• Chemical composition
• Grain size
• Ambient condition
• Geometry of surface
• Physical nature of surface layer
• Porosity
• Roughness
• Density
• Type of surface treatment given

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 CREEP
• Tensile properties of most engineering materials
– At room temperature are independent of time for
practical purposes.
– At elevated temperature the strength becomes
very dependent on both strain rate and time of
exposure.
• The slow and progressive deformation of a material
with time at constant stress is therefore called creep.
• A material subjected to constant tensile load at an
elevated temperature will creep and undergo a time
dependent deformation.
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 CREEP continue…
• Creep is observed in metals, ionic and covalent crystals
and amorphous materials such as glasses and polymers.
• Metal generally exhibit creep at high temperatures,
whereas plastics, rubbers are very temperature
sensitive to creep.
• Soft metals at room temperature like lead pipe
• Steam boiler and chemical processes operated around
450 -550 º C.
• Gas turbines at high temperature
• Rocket, missile, aero plane, supersonic jets
• Nuclear reactor
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Creep Curve

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Service lives of machine components subjected
to creep

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Thank You

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