Baba Farid College of Engineering & Technology
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Stress-strain diagram for ductile materials

Ductile materials, which includes structural steel, as well as many alloys of other metals, are characterized by their ability to yield at normal temperatures.

Low carbon steel generally exhibits a very linear stress–strain relationship up to a well defined yield point . The linear portion of the curve is the elastic region and the slope is the modulus of elasticity or Young's Modulus. After the yield point, the curve typically decreases slightly because of dislocations escaping from Cottrell atmospheres. As deformation continues, the stress increases on account of strain hardening until it reaches the ultimate strength. Until this point, the cross-sectional area decreases uniformly because of Poisson contractions. The actual rupture point is in the same vertical line as the visual rupture point.


However, beyond this point a neck forms where the local cross-sectional area decreases more quickly than the rest of the sample resulting in an increase in the true stress, On an engineering stress–strain curve this is seen as a decrease in the apparent stress. However if the curve is plotted in terms of true stress and true strain the stress will continue to rise until failure. Eventually the neck becomes unstable and the specimen ruptures (fractures).

Less ductile materials such as aluminum and medium to high carbon steels do not have a well-defined yield point.There are generally two types of yield points,upper and lower yield point. For these materials the yield strength is typically determined by the "offset yield method", by which a line is drawn parallel to the linear elastic portion of the curve and intersecting the abscissa at some arbitrary value (generally from 0.1% to 0.2%). The intersection of this line and the stress–strain curve is reported as the yield point. The elastic region is the portion of the curve where the material will return to its original shape if the load is removed. The plastic region is the portion where some permanent deformation will occur, even if the load is removed. Failure point is when the object ruptures.