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Elastic Properties of Materials, Tensile Test

Xingbo Liu

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

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Tensile Test

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

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Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

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Engineering Stress: E = F/A0

Engineering Strain: E = (L-L0)/L = L / L

Hooks Law: E= E E
=G

Generalized Hooks Law:

x = x/E - y/E- z/E
y = y/E - x/E- z/E
z = z/E - y/E- x/E

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Tensile Test

Linear Nonlinear

(a) (b) (c)

Typical F vs L plots of linear and nonlinear materials

under tensile loading

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Tensile Test (Contd)

Typical F/A0 vs L/L0 plots of linear and nonlinear

materials under tensile loading

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Tensile Test (Contd)

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Tensile Test (Contd)

Proportionality Limit: Last point where stress and strain are

linearly related. (Point a.)

Elastic Limit: Last point from which after removal of load,

there is no permanent strain. (Point b.)

Yield Point: Technically the same as the elastic limit but

usually associated with the gross onset of
permanent strain. Many materials do not
exhibit a clearly defined yield point and so
this point is often taken to correspond to a
certain offset of strain. Point c is the yield
point for 0.2% (0.002 strain) offset

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Tensile Test (Contd)

Yield Strength: Stress at yield point, y.

Tensile Strength: Sometimes called the Ultimate Tensile

Strength (UTS) and is the maximum stress
reached during the loading. Point d.

Material Toughness: The area under the elastic and the plastic
portion of the stress-strain curve. It is the
total energy required to stress the material to
the point of fracture

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Tensile Test (Contd)

Elongation: (Plastic) strain after fracture, or tensile

ductility. The broken pieces are put together
and measured, and f = (L-L0)/L0.

Reduction of Area: The maximum decrease in cross-sectional

area. RA = (A - A0)/A0

Resilience: The ability of a material to absorb energy

when deformed elastically and to return it
when unloaded.

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Tensile Test (Contd)

True Stress: T = F/A

= F(E+1)/A0

True Strain: T = ln (L/L0) = ln (E +1)

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Tensile Test (Contd)

Comparison of engineering and true stress-strain curves

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Tensile Test (Contd)

At Maximum Load:

E Fmax / A0 T Fmax / A
A0
T ln( )
A
Eliminating Fmax yields

A0 T
T E Ee
A
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Tensile Test (Contd)

True Fracture Stress: The load at fracture divided by the cross-

sectional area at fracture.
Ffracture Ffracture A0 A0
T fracture E
Afracture A0 Afracture Afracture
True Fracture Strain: The true fracture strain ef is the true
strain based on the original area A0 and
the area after fracture Af
A0 1
T fracture ln( ) ln( )
Afracture 1 RA

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Tensile Test (Contd)

True Uniform Strain: True strain based only on the strain up to

maximum load. It may be calculated from either the specimen
cross-sectional area Au or the gage length Lu at maximum load.
The uniform strain is often useful in estimating the formability of
metals from the results of a tension test.

A0
T uniform ln( )
Au

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Tensile Test (Contd) Work Hardening

* n is the strain-hardening exponent

K is the strength coefficient

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Tensile Test (Contd) Work Hardening

Log/log plot of true stress-strain curve

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Tensile Test (Contd) Work Hardening

Various forms of power curve =K* n

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Values for n and K for metals at room temperature

Metal Condition n K, psi

0,05% C steel Annealed 0,26 77000

SAE 4340 steel Annealed 0,15 93000

0,60% C steel Quenched and tempered 1000oF 0,10 228000

0,60% C steel Quenched and tempered 1300oF 0,19 178000

Copper Annealed 0,54 46400

70/30 brass Annealed 0,49 130000

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