MATERIAL ENGINEERING

CONCEPTS
 MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
OF MATERIALS

✓ Tension and Compression Test

✓ Stress-Strain Diagram
✓ Stress-Strain Behavior of Ductile
and Brittle Materials
✓ Hooke’s Law
✓ Strain Energy
✓ Poission’s Ratio
 LOADING CONDITIONS
FOR TESTING

❑ Static – sustained (dead/live) loading of the

structure over a period of time
❑ Dynamic – loads that generate shock or
vibration to structures:
a) Periodic – rotating equipment in building,
b) Random Load – Load pattern never repeats,
such as earthquakes,
c) Transient load – impulse load applied for a
short time, later vibration decay and structure
returns to rest condition, trucks moving on
bridges
 TENSION & COMPRESSION TEST

• Strength of a material can only be determined by

experiment
• One test used by engineers is the tension or
compression test
• This test is used primarily to determine the
relationship between the average normal stress
and average normal strain in common
engineering materials, such as metals, ceramics,
polymers and composites
TEST STANDARDS RELATED
TO THE EN EUROCODES
 TENSION & COMPRESSION TEST
Performing the tension or compression test
• Specimen of material is made into “standard”
shape and size
• Before testing, 2 small punch marks identified
along specimen’s length
• Measurements are taken of both specimen’s initial
x-sectional area A0 and gauge-length distance L0;
between the two marks
 TENSION & COMPRESSION TEST

Performing the tension or compression test

• Seat the specimen into a testing machine shown
below
• The machine will stretch
specimen at slow
constant rate until
breaking point
• At frequent intervals
during test, data is
recorded of the applied
load P.
 TENSION & COMPRESSION TEST
Performing the tension or compression test
• Elongation δ = L − L0 is measured using either a
caliper or an extensometer
• δ is used to calculate the normal strain in the
specimen
• Sometimes, strain can also be read directly using
an electrical-resistance strain gauge
 TENSION & COMPRESSION TEST

Tension test Compression test

 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM

Conventional stress-strain diagram

• A stress-strain diagram is obtained by plotting
the various values of the stress and
corresponding strain in the specimen
• Using recorded data, we can determine nominal
or engineering stress by
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
Conventional Stress-Strain Diagram
• Likewise, nominal or engineering strain is found
directly from strain gauge reading, or by

• By plotting σ against , we get a conventional

stress-strain diagram
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM

STRESS

STRAIN
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 ELASTIC BEHAVIOUR

❑ The stress is proportional to the strain.

❑ The material is linear elastic.
❑ The upper stress limit to this linear
relationship is called the
proportional limit, If the stress
slightly exceeds the proportional
limit, the curve tends to bend and
flatten out .
❑ This continues until the stress reaches
the elastic limit. Upon reaching this
point, if the load is removed the
specimen will still return back to its
original shape.
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 YIELDING

❑ A slight increase in stress above the

elastic limit will result in a breakdown
of the material and cause it to
deform permanently. This behavior is
called yielding.
❑ The stress that causes yielding is called
the yield stress (σy) or yield point,
and the deformation that occurs is
called plastic deformation.
❑ Once the yield point is reached, the
specimen will continue to elongate
(strain) without any increase in load.
This is referred as perfectly plastic.
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 STRAIN HARDENING

❑ When yielding has ended, an

increase in load can be
supported by the specimen,
resulting in a curve that rises
continuously until it reaches a
maximum stress referred to as
the ultimate stress (σu).
❑ Up to the ultimate stress, as
the specimen elongates, its
cross-sectional area will
decrease uniformly over the
specimen’s entire gauge
length.
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 NECKING

❑ Just after, at the ultimate

stress, the cross-sectional area
will begin to decrease in a
localized region of the specimen.
❑ A constriction or “neck” tends to
form in this region as the
specimen elongates further.
❑ The stress–strain diagram tends
to curve downward until the
specimen breaks at the fracture
stress (σf).
STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
STRESS

STRAIN
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM

From the true stress-strain

diagram, the actual area A within the
STRESS

necking region is always decreasing

until fracture σf, and so the STRAIN

material actually sustains

increasing stress, since σ = P/A.
 STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM
• Materials deform in response to loads
or forces.
• 1678, Robert Hooke, first published on
linear relationship between force and
deformation
 MODULUS OF ELASTICITY

• E represents the
constant of
proportionality, also
E called the modulus of
elasticity or Young’s
modulus
• E has units of stress, i.e.,
pascals, MPa or GPa.
 MODULUS OF TOUGHNESS
Modulus of resilience
• When stress reaches
proportional limit, strain-
energy-energy density is
called modulus of resilience
• A material’s resilience
represents its ability to
absorb energy without any
permanent damage
 MODULUS OF TOUGHNESS

• Modulus of
toughness ut, indicates
the strain-energy
density of material
before it fractures
• Shaded area under
stress-strain diagram is
the modulus of
toughness
 POISSON’S RATIO
• When body subjected to axial tensile force, it elongates
and contracts laterally
• Similarly, it will contract and its sides expand laterally
when subjected to an axial compressive force
 POISSON’S RATIO

• Strains of the bar are:

• Early 1800s, S.D. Poisson realized that within elastic

range, ration of the two strains is a constant value,
since both are proportional.
 SHEAR STRESS-STRAIN DIAGRAM

SHEAR STRESS

G is shear modulus
of elasticity or
modulus of rigidity
SHEAR STRAIN
 ELASTOPLASTIC BEHAVIOUR

• Stress increase, strain increase proportionally - elastic

• Up to elastic limit, the strain increase without further
increase in load – plastic
• If load removed, only some deformation will recover
• Materials which does not undergo plastic deformation
– brittle, eg. Concrete – structure collapse
• Materials with large plastic deformation – ductile, eg.
Steel – structure does not collapse
 ELASTOPLASTIC BEHAVIOUR
• In most metals,
constant yielding will
not occur beyond the
elastic range.
• This metal often does
not have a well-defined
yield point.
• A yield strength can be
defined using a
graphical procedure
called the offset
method.
ELASTOPLASTIC BEHAVIOUR
 VISCOELASTIC BEHAVIOUR

• Time dependent response – eg. Asphalt and

plastic
• Creep – long term deformation, in metal due
to temperature
• Viscous flow – short-term load duration, in
amorphous materials such as concrete.
• Fatigue occur when material undergoes a large
number of cycles of loading. Will cause micro-
cracks to occur and lead to brittle failure.
VISCOELASTIC BEHAVIOUR
 NON-MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
• Density and unit Weight
• Thermal Expansion
Coefficient of thermal expansion –
amount of expansion per unit length
due to one unit of temperature
increase (a constant)
• Surface characteristic – corrosion
and degradation, abrasion and wear
resistance, surface texture