ME 234 Mechanics of Materials – I

Lecture 10 - Strain

Dr. Rizwan Saeed Choudhry

rizwan.choudhry@gmail.com

Dept of Mechanical Engineering,

NUST, College of E & ME, Rawalpindi,
College of Pakistan
Electrical and Mechanical
Engineering
Quiz

• Q1: Derive the relation for axial and hoop

stress for cylinderical pressure vessel (thin
walled)
• Q.2 Prove the complimentary property of
shear
Lectures 10, 11 and 12
• The Displacement Field
• Defining Strain and Strain Components
• Strain in terms of Displacement Field
• Compatibility

Follows from: Chapter 3: Introduction to Solid

Mechanics – Irwing H. Shames
The Displacement Field

• How would you define the position of a

point P in Cartesian space?
• How would you define the position of a
point P inside a body?
• Now if this body deforms, how can we
find the new position (P’) of this point
• The continuum of vectors giving the
displacement from each Point P to its
position P’ in the deformed geometry is
the
Displacement Field, u(x,y,z)
The Displacement Field – Example 3-1

• Consider a point P in an arbitrary

mass.
• After deformation the point P is
displaced to a new position P’ which
is given by a displacement field, u

• If the position of point P in the

undeformed geometry is given by
r =j + k m
• What will be the new position
vector?
The Displacement Field

• x = 0, y = 1, z = 1

 (3 j  10k )  102 m
• The new position vector is given by
r'  r  u
 r '  j  k  (3 j  10k )  102
r '  1.03 j  1.10k
Strain and Strain Components
• Is displacement field sufficient to describe the change in
geometry of a body?
– Yes it is
• Is displacement field a vector, scalar or rank 2 tensor ?
• It is a vector, so intuitively what do you think; can it be
more easily related to a stress or force?
• Think about it ? With the continuum assumption do we
really need to be concerned with position of individual
atoms i.e. the displacement field?
• Or is it the relative position of a group of atoms that is
more important?
• Will it be practically possible and convenient to measure
the displacement field directly?
Strain and Strain Components

• In keeping with the continuum concept, it

is practically more convenient to
measure the relative change in position
of group of points
• As we shall see such relative change can
also be more conveniently related with
the stress in the body.
• In coming lectures we will focus more on
experimental techniques of measuring
such change, however, here we will be
concerned more with analytical methods
of quantifying this change.
Strain and Strain Components

• High School Definition of Strain

l
– Change in length per unit original length
l
• Is there a more general definition?
– Deformation in a body per unit original geometry
– Change in geometry per unit original geometry
• What are the different possible types of change
in geometry (or deformation) in Cartesian space
– Dilatation (change in dimensions along any axis - no
change in shape, only in size)
– Distortion (change in orientation of any plane – i.e.
change in shape, not in size)
Strain and Strain Components

• We shall attempt to describe the relative

change in geometry of a body (Strain) in terms
of points on three orthogonal planes
– remember we defined the general state of stress on
three orthogonal planes and claimed that this
representation will allow us to determine stress on
any other plane using simple algebraic
manipulations (transformation matrices)
– We make a similar claim for strains specified for
three orthogonal planes and as before defer the
proof for much later.
Strain and Strain Components

• Consider an infinitesimal element

(parallelepiped shaped) in an un-deformed
body, under normal stress only
Strain and Strain Components

• The stress deforms the body which may causes this

element to
– Rigid body translation (not important – no relative motion)
– Rigid body rotation (not important – no relative motion)
– Expand or contract in such a way that its shape remains
parallelepiped (Important)
This is called Dilatation
Strain and Strain Components

• The dilatation along each axis can then be given

by, dx
 xx 
dx
dy
 yy 
dy
dz
 zz 
dz
• This is very similar to our high school definition – however, defined
for each orthogonal axis.
• Does this indicate that there is a relationship between the strains in
different axis? (Actually there is but this form does
not make it apparent)
Strain and Strain Components

• Now Consider an element in Pure Shear

• Like previous case we are not interested in translation and rigid

body rotation - can you see why?
• We are however, interested in changes in relative orientation of the
faces of the element; assuming that such changes do not
appreciably change the volume of our element.
Strain and Strain Components

• The angle which gives the relative change in

orientation of faces is called Shear Angle (γ ) or
Engineering Shear Strain and from the figure it is given
by the relative angle of the sides of parallelogram dy
and dz. The shear angle γyz = α + β
Strain and Strain Components

• Assuming that the faces of

parallelepiped element rotate in
shear as a rigid body
α=β=ε
• Hence, εyz= εzy= ½ γyz = ½ γzy
• Similarly we may define
εyx , εxy , εxz , εzx
• Can you see complementary
property of shear?
Sign Convention

• Normal Strains:
– Extension per unit length is positive
strain
– Contraction per unit length is negative
strain
• Shear Strain
– A decrease in angle from that of right
angle is positive shear strain
– An increase in angle from that of right
angle is negative shear strain
– Was the stress discussed in previous
slide positive or negative?
Combined Shear Strains

• Previously shear was assumed to be in a particular

plane.
• How do you think, the shear strains can be
represented if shear takes place in more then one
plane simultaneously.
• In general for combined loading an element will
shear in a way that a face which was previously in a
plane will no longer remain in that plane.
• If the element was initially specified in terms of three
orthogonal planes, it is always possible to project the
deformed shape back on these orthogonal planes.
Combined Shear Strains
• Once projected back the shear strain in each plane
can be determined and the total shear can be
expressed in terms of these components.
• This process is analogues to resolving a 3D vector
along orthogonal axis.
• Following figures will be used to explain these
remarks.
The Strain Tensor

• The previous discussion has shown that the three

components of strain discussed earlier are sufficient
to describe shear strain for any general state of
shear loading.
• Hence like the stress – we can define the general
state of strain by the strain tensor of rank 2 given
below.
  xx  xy  xz 
 
 ij    yx  yy  yz 
 
 zy  zz 
 zx
Example 3.2

• Length = 10 ‘
• Elongation = 2”
• Cross-section = 1” on edge
 xx ,  yy ,  zz
• Find
Strains in Axial Bars: MecMovie Example 2-1
Home work

• Introduction to Solid Mechanics, Irwing H.

Shames
– Reading Section 3.3
– Examples 3.2 – 3.7
• MecMovies :
http://web.mst.edu/~mecmovie/
– Problem 2.1 to 2.5
Next Lectures

• Strain in terms of Displacement Field

• Compatibility Consideration