Mechanical

properties of
Metals
By Clinton Bemont
Adapted from McGraw-Hill and other sources
 Stress and Strain in Metals
• Metals undergo deformation under uniaxial tensile force.

• Elastic deformation: Metal

returns to its original
dimension after the
load is removed.

• Plastic deformation: The

metal is deformed to
such an extent such
that it cannot return
to its original dimension

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Compression, Tension, (Bending, Torsion), Shear
 Engineering Stress and Strain
Engineering stress = σ = F (Average uniaxial tensile force)
A0 (Original cross-sectional area)

Units of Stress are N/m2 (Pascals)

A0 Δl


0 Engineering strain = ε =
Change in length
0 Original length
A
  0 
 
0 

•Units of strain are m/m or mm/mm

•Uniaxial means along one axis
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 Poisons Ratio
 (lateral ) y
Poisons ratio =   
 (longitudin al ) z

w  w0
w0 w  
0   0

Usually poisons ratio ranges from
0.25 to 0.4.

Example: Stainless steel 0.28

In an ideal materials there is no volume
change during deformation and the
Poisson’s ration is 0,5
In practice it is less, often 0,25 – 0,4
Copper 0.33
Poisson’s ratio is named after
Siméon Poisson, French
mathematician, physicist, 1781
 Compression vs. Tension
• Both are uniaxial and material properties and
behaviour is very similar
• There is no necking in compression – the
specimen diameter keeps getting larger
• Thus the UTS occurs at failure
• And the UTS is much higher
• And the failure mode is different (usually 45o)
 Shear Stress and Shear Strain
FS (Shear force)
Shear stress = τ =
A (Area of shear force application)

Amount of shear displacement ‘a’

Shear strain = γ = tan θ =
Distance ‘h’ over which shear acts
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 Tensile Test

Commonly used test specimens

Top – round
Bottom – flat

Typical Stress-strain curve

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 Tensile test
• Strength of materials can be tested by pulling the metal to
failure.

Load Cell

Specimen
Extensometer

Force data is obtained from Load cell

Strain data is obtained from Extensometer.
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 Hooke’s Law (Robert Hooke, 1635)
• Modulus of elasticity (E) : Stress and strain are linearly
related in elastic region.

σ (Stress) Δσ
E= Strain E=
Δε
ε (Strain) Δσ

σ = E. ε Δε
• Higher the bonding strength, Stress
higher is the modulus of elasticity. Linear portion of the
stress strain curve

• Examples: Modulus of Elasticity of steel is 207 Gpa.

Modulus of elasticity of Aluminum is 76 Gpa
Modulus of elasticity is often
Shear Modulus of Elasticity G = τ / γ also called “Young’s Modulus”
τ = G. γ (after Thomas Young) and then
10 usually refers to the tensile case
 Elastic and Shear Moduli and Poisson’s
Ratio for some metals

The greater a material’s modulus, the stiffer the material is in its elastic region. That
means that a given force will cause less deformation in a material with a higher modulus.
The only physical parameter that affects a
material’s modulus is temperature:

•The magnitude of a material’s

elastic modulus gives an indication
of its atomic bonding forces

•The modulus for ceramics is thus

usually higher than that of metals
and that of metals higher than
that of plastics

•Tensile and compressive moduli

are usually similar
 Elastic vs Shear Moduli
• A material’s elastic and shear modulus are related
to one another via Poisson’s ratio by:

• For most metals: G ≈ 0,4.E

but this cannot be automatically assumed!

• Many polycrystaline materials are isotropic which

means that E is constant in all directions.
Example Problems
 Yield Strength / Yield Point
• Yield strength is the stress at which a
metal or alloy shows a significant amount
of plastic deformation (unrecoverable
deformation)

• 0.2% offset yield strength is that strength

at which 0.2% (0.002mm/mm) plastic
deformation takes place

• Construction line, starting at 0.2% strain

and parallel to elastic region is drawn to
fiend 0.2% offset yield strength

• Yield point indicates an elastic to plastic

transition and a transition from linearity to
non-linearity. This occurs at a strain of
about 0,0068 in the figure to the right

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 Two types of yield on σ-ε curves

• Some materials (far

right) exhibit a
distinct yield point,
showing an upper
and lower yield point

• The yield strength is

then taken as the
lower yield point and
the 0.2% offset
method is not used.
 Plastic deformation
• From an atomic perspective, plastic
deformation entails the breaking of bonds
between atoms.

• In crystalline metals it primarily entails a net

movement of large numbers of atoms relative
to one another via dislocations (breaking and
reforming of bonds).
 Ultimate tensile strength
• Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is the maximum strength
reached by the engineering stress strain curve.
• Necking starts when UTS is reached: Al 2024-Tempered

Stress (Mpa)
Necking Point, UTS

• More ductile the metal is, more

is the necking before failure. Al 2024-Annealed

• Stress increases till failure. Drop

in stress strain curve is due to stress
calculation based on original area.
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Strain
Stress strain curves of Al 2024 With
two different heat treatments. Ductile
annealed sample necks more.
 Percent Elongation
• Percent elongation is a measure of ductility of a material
• It is the elongation of the metal at fracture expressed as
percentage of original length:

Final length – initial Length

% Elongation = 100x
Initial Length

• Measured using a caliper fitting the fractured metal

together
• Example:- Percent elongation of pure aluminum is 35%
For 7076-T6 aluminum alloy it is 11%

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Stress-strain curves of some metals
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Elastic strain recovery / Strain hardening
• σy0 is the initial yield
strength
• σy1 is the new yield
strength after applying
and then releasing the σy1
load
• The yield strength σy0
increases due to an
increase in dislocation
density
• The plastic portion of the
true stress-strain curve
can be approximated by:
σt = K.εtn
, where K and n are constants
for the material and n is called
the “strain hardening
exponent”
Mechanical properties of some pure metals

The properties in this table are

for room temperature and are
also sensitive to the following:

•Prior deformation
•Presence of impurities
•Heat treatment
UTS vs. elongation for some steels

ESP International
 True Stress – True Strain
• True stress and true strain are based upon instantaneous
cross-sectional area and length

F
• True Stress = σt = Ai (instantaneous area)
i
d l
• True Strain = εt = 
0

 Ln i
l0
• True stress is always greater than engineering stress
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 …True Stress – True Strain
• If we take the ideal case where there is no
volume change during deformation then:
Ao.lo = Ai.li (where: o=original; i=instantaneous)
i
d
• and: li A0
   Ln l0  Ln Ai
0

• Also, true and engineering stress and strain can

be related by:
Tensile Test 1045 Steel (High Carbon) vs.
1018 Steel (Low Carbon)

1018:
Tensile strength = 440 Mpa Modulus of Elasticity = 205 Gpa
Reduction in area = 40%, Elongation = 15%
1045:
Tensile Strength = 696 Mpa, Elastic Modulus = 207 Gpa
Area reduction = 40%, Elongation = 10%
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Example problems
Example problems
 Hardness and Hardness Testing
• Hardness is a measure of the resistance of a metal to
localized permanent (plastic) deformation
• It is related to UTS
• General procedure:
Press the indenter that
is harder than the metal
into the metal surface.

Withdraw the indenter

Measure hardness by Rockwell hardness

tester
measuring depth or
width of indentation.
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Hardness Tests

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 Hardness vs. Tensile Strength

University of Maryland
 Hardness: Virtual Lab Module
• Click below to view the virtual lab module related to Rockwell
hardness tester and scales.

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 Hardness: Virtual Lab Module
• Click below to view the virtual lab module related to Rockwell
hardness testing procedure: Inserting indenter and adding
weights.

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 Hardness: Virtual Lab Module
• Click below to view the virtual lab module related to Rockwell
hardness testing procedure: Applying loads

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 Toughness
• The ability to absorb
energy up to the point of
fracture
• Dynamic toughness is
measured by impact
testing (see next page)
• Static toughness = area
under σ-ε curve (energy
absorption per unit
volume material)
• Thus tough material must
display both strength &
ductility
• Toughness measured in
J/m3 (≡ Pa)
...Toughness – Impact Testing
 Impact testing (Cont…)
• Also used to find the temperature range for ductile to
brittle transition.

Ductile-brittle transition for varying steel carbon content

• Sinking of Titanic: Titanic was made of steel which has a

ductile - brittle transition temperature of 320C. On the day
of sinking, the ocean temperature was –20C which made
the structure very brittle and susceptible to brittle failure.