MA6812 Advanced

Materials Engineering

MECHANICAL
FUNDAMENTALS

AY2024-25 (S1) Sunil C. Joshi

Inputs taken from WWW resources for enriching this presentation are gratefully acknowledged
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 Mechanics of Materials?
 Mechanics is the study of force, deformation and
motion, and the relations between them.

 Statics is the mechanics with the idealization of

a system/body wherein acceleration of mass is negligible.
Deformations and motion are ignored.
Uses assumption of rigidity.

 Strength of materials expands statics to include material

properties and distributed effects of forces (stress, strain).
Useful for predicting deformations.

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Strength of Materials: Assumptions
• The body being analyzed is

- continuous: does not contain voids or empty spaces.

- homogeneous: identical properties at all points.
- isotropic: property does not vary with direction.

• Stress in the material is proportional to strain.

(Hooke’s law)
• The member being analyzed is in equilibrium.
(ΣFx =0, ΣFy =0, ΣM =0)

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 Strength of Materials: Reality
Engineering materials seem to meet above
conditions on a macro-scale
However:
1) They are microscopically non-homogeneous and non-isotropic.
2) Most engineering metals are made up of more than one phase,
with different mechanical properties (heterogeneous).
3) Even a single-phase metal usually exhibit chemical segregation
(the properties not identical from point to point).
4) Different properties in different crystallographic directions.
5) Metals, when severely deformed, as in rolling or forging, the
mechanical properties may be anisotropic on a macro scale.
6) Lack of continuity in porous castings or powder metallurgy parts.

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 Elastic & plastic behavior
• All solid materials can be deformed when subjected to
external loads.

- The elastic limit: It is the limiting load beyond which a deformed

body no longer can recover the original dimensions when the load is
removed.
Hooke’s law (stress is proportional to strain).

- Plastic deformation: A permanent set or deformation experienced

by a body, when the load is removed after subjecting the body to a
load beyond the elastic limit.
This process of relatively easy plastic deformation is called yielding,
and the value of stress where this behavior begins is the yield
strength.

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Plastic deformations
Large plastic deformations are
often harmful and constitute
failure.
e.g. collapse of a steel bridge.

Small plastic deformations can

cause malfunction of a
component.
e.g. unbalanced rotation of a
shaft → vibration → early
failure of the supporting
bearings.

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 Brittle and ductile materials
Brittle materials: fracture without much plastic
deformation.
e.g. glass, stone, acrylic plastic, and some metals, such
as the high-strength steel used to make a file.
Ductile Materials: capable of sustaining large
amounts of plastic deformation.
e.g. many metals, such as low-strength steels, copper,
and lead, and some plastics.

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Brittle and ductile behavior

(NED, p4)

u = ultimate; o = yield
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 Brittleness and ductility in design
Brittleness: not an absolute property of a metal.
e.g. Tungsten - brittle at room temperature, ductile at an elevated
temperature.
With brittle materials, localized stresses continue to build up
when there is no local yielding. Finally, a crack forms at one or
more points of stress concentration, and spreads rapidly over the
section leading to failure.

Ductility: Adequate ductility is an important consideration, as it

allows the material to re-distribute localized stresses.
Possible to design for static situations on the basis of average
stresses ignoring stress concentrations.

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Flow curve for ductile metal

TRUE stress-strain
curve.

Gives the stress

required to cause
the metal to flow
plastically to any
given strain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzgumWPB_zc

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 True strain and stress
Total volume of a solid remains constant during
plastic (large) deformation (before the necking
starts).

ε x + ε y + ε z = ε1 + ε 2 + ε 3 = 0

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 True strain and stress
For the true or natural strain, ε, the change in length (dL) is
referred to the instantaneous gage length (Li). If e is the
linear strain
L
L1 − L0 L − Ln dL L
ε =∑ +−−−−+ =∫ = ln = ln( e + 1)
L0 Ln L0
L L0

True stress σ is the load at any instant divided by the cross-

sectional area A over which it acts and is related to the
engineering stress or conventional stress S by

σ = S (e + 1)
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 3D stress field
There exists one choice of a new coordinate
system where shear stresses are absent and
the maximum and minimum normal stresses
occur along with an intermediate normal
stress.
For these Principal stresses solve:

(σ x − σ ) τ xy τ zx
general state of stress
τ xy (σ y − σ ) τ yz =0
σ x , σ y , σ z ,τ xy ,τ yz ,τ zx τ zx τ yz (σ z − σ )
The principal shear stresses occur on planes inclined 45° w.r.t. the principal
normal stresses. The absolute values of these are:
σ 2 −σ 3 σ1 − σ 3 σ −σ 2
τ1 = τ2 = τ3 = 1
2 2 2

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Failure of homogenous materials
Under complex loading (tension, compression, bending,
torsion, or pressure etc.) at a given point in the material
stresses often occur in more than one direction.

If sufficiently severe, such combined stresses act together

to cause the material to yield or fracture.

Predicting the safe limit for using a material under

combined stresses requires application of a failure
criterion.

Ductile materials → limited by yielding.

Brittle materials → limited by fracture.

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 Tresca (yield) criterion
or Maximum shear stress criterion
It assumes that yielding occurs when the maximum shear stress
reaches the shear stress in the uniaxial-tension test.

In a uniaxial tension, σ 1 = σ 0 (yield strength); σ 2 and

=σ3 = 0
σ0
τ0 =
2
∴at yielding σ0  σ −σ 2 σ 2 −σ 3 σ 3 −σ1 
= MAX  1 , , 
2  2 2 2 

to avoid the failure σ 0 > MAX (σ 1 − σ 2 , σ 2 − σ 3 , σ 3 − σ 1 )

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 Octahedral shear stress
criterion
Von Mises (yield) or
the distortion energy criterion
It assumes that yielding occurs when the shear stress
on the octahedral plane reaches a critical value. The
octahedral plane is a plane that intercepts the principal
normal stress axes at equal distances from the origin.

the octahedral τ = 2σ 0 or
1
(σ 1 − σ 2 ) 2 + (σ 2 − σ 3 ) 2 + (σ 3 − σ 1 ) 2
shear stress h
3 3
σ1 + σ 2 + σ 3
σh =
and, the octahedral normal stress 3
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 Octahedral shear stress
criterion
Von Mises (yield) or the distortion energy criterion

It assumes that yielding occurs when the shear stress

on the octahedral planes reaches a critical value.

In a uniaxial tension, σ 1 = σ 0 (yield strength); σ 2 = σ 3 = 0

2 1
∴ at yielding σ 0 = (σ 1 − σ 2 ) 2 + (σ 2 − σ 3 )2 + (σ 3 − σ 1 )2
3 3
1
σ0 > (σ 1 − σ 2 ) 2 + (σ 2 − σ 3 ) 2 + (σ 3 − σ 1 ) 2
to avoid the failure 2
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 Maximum normal stress criterion
The failure is expected when the largest principal normal
stress reaches the uniaxial strength of the material.

∴at fracture σ u = MAX (σ 1 , σ 2 , σ 3 )

Absolute values are used so that compressive principal stresses

can be considered. It is assumed that the ultimate (fracture)
strength of the material is the same in tension and compression.

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 Fracture Mechanics
The presence of a crack in a component may weaken it so
that it fails by fracturing into two or more pieces.

This can occur at stresses below the material’s yield

strength, where failure would not be normally expected.

Where cracks are difficult to avoid, fracture mechanics

approach can be used to aid the component design and
material selection to minimize the possibility of fracture.

Deep surface scratches or gouges, voids in welds,

inclusions of foreign substances in cast and forged
materials, and delaminations in layered materials may
easily develop into cracks.
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 Fracture modes

(NED, p286)

Mode I → opening mode → under tensile loading.

Mode II → sliding mode → in-plane shearing.
Mode III → tearing mode → out of plane shearing.

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 Stress Intensity & Fracture toughness
Stress Intensity Factor, K, characterizes magnitude of stresses in
vicinity of sharp crack tip in linear-elastic, isotropic material.
𝑲𝑲 = 𝒀𝒀𝝈𝝈 𝝅𝝅𝝅𝝅 (for infinite width plate)

a = Semi crack width

Y = finite width correction factor
If plate is very large, a<<<w, Y=1.0
If plate is finite, a<w, Y>1.0

𝑲𝑲𝒄𝒄 =Y𝛔𝛔 𝝅𝝅𝒂𝒂𝒄𝒄 (for infinite width plate)

Fracture Toughness, Kc , characterizes resistance of material to

crack propagation. When K<Kc, material can resist a crack
without fracture. Otherwise, crack will enlarge leading to failure.
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 Fracture toughness Kc
(NED, p281)
Assuming a<<<b

Yield stress

Brittle fracture
zone (use FM)

Failure of cracked plates of 20l4-T6 Al tested at -1950C

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 Yield-before-break
It’s a design criterion for structures, especially
for pressure vessels, where safety is of utmost
importance and sudden failures (without any
warning) are to be avoided.

Implies that a structure would not fail due to fast

(brittle) fracture.

A structure would undergo a noticeable amount of

plastic deformation before any crack present in the
structure would propagate.
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 Leak-before-burst
A design criterion for pressure vessels,
where failures without any warning are
totally avoided.

This allows a pressure vessel to be

designed in such a way that it would not
fail due to fast fracture, even if one
through-thickness crack appears in it.
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