Introduction

Tensile test is one of the most important mechanical property evaluation

test. In this test a plate shaped specimen is deformed by applying a uniaxial
force as shown in the figure below. One end of the sample is fixed in a static
grip while the other end of the specimen is pulled at a constant velocity. The
load is continuously monitored during the test. It is usual to conduct this test
until the sample fractures. During the test, the instantaneous elongation of
the sample can be calculated from the velocity of deformation or can also be
measured by using an extensometer.

The resulting output from such a test is recorded as load versus

displacement/elongation and can be graphically displayed as a load versus
elongation curve. Load versus elongation curve is then converted to
engineering-stress versus engineering-strain curve to evaluate the tensile
properties of materials. Very often engineering-stress versus engineeringstrain curves need to be converted to true-stress versus true-strain curves.

The tensile properties that can be obtained from the stress-strain curves are
yield strength, tensile strength, fracture strength, percent total elongation,
uniform elongation, strain hardening exponent, modulus of resilience, and
modulus of toughness.
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Stress-Strain Curves

Engineering Stress- Strain Curve

Lets draw the raw data set.

As we can see, the initial linear part of the stress-strain curve does not start
from the origin. That is caused by the test machines assembly spacing. At
the very beginning of the test, these gaps and spacing goes away until 0.02
strain. So we need to shift the whole curve to the left where the estimated
intersection of the elastic region corresponds to the origin. This way we can
obtain the usual stress-strain curve and make our evaluations with respect to
the modified curve, however one should know that we cannot be 100% sure
of the whole modification steps will give us the exact result.

Ill explain the modifications that Ive done to obtain the expected/usual
engineering stress-strain curve below:
1) Turning travel values into strain.
To do this, we need to divide every travel value to initial length (gage
length) of the specimen.
2) Obtaining stress values.
Given force values are divided into the initial cross sectional area (A0)
3) Shifting the graph to left hand side.
This part is the trickiest part and took me very long time to deal with.
I decided on getting rid of the initial parabolic values of the results and
extending the linear part of the graph to y=0 then finding the x value
when y=0 which will give us the offset value in x direction. When we
subtract this offset from the each strain value, at the end we will get
the graph that starts from the origin.

To do what Ive explained above,

I modelled the linear part of the graph as,
=E(e+C)
Here C will represent the shift in x direction.
To find out what C is, I found the derivation of each node on the graph
by using equation,
=(Stress2-Stress1)/(Strain2-Strain1)
and applying this to all rows in excel. The purpose of this is to get
slopes (Young Modulus, E) for every two successive nodes in the
dataset and obtain an empiric E value.
The initial 1000+ values gave me ridiculous values (even negative
slopes) ranging from 0 to 6000 MPa, and the rest of the values varied
from 8000 to 10000 MPa which I assumed as the slope of the linear
part of the graph. After a couple of thousands of values, slopes started
to fall down implying the linear part of the graph ended and we are on
the plastic region.
My decision making strategy on determining where the linear part
starts and ends was this.
So I assumed E= 8784,15 MPa and found,
4

=E.e=(10000 MPa).( 0,02952098 mm/mm)= 295,2 MPa

The corresponding stress value for

(0,02952098mm/mm) is =37,04 MPa so,

the

strain

used

above

|37,04-295,2|=258.16
The found value is the,

=E(e+C) =E.e+E.C

E.C part of the equation. When we divide 258.16 to E value we will get
C constant (the amount that the graph is shifted to right hand side)
which is,
C = 0,025816
After this I subtracted this C from all strain values I got before, so I got
the below graphic, which starts from the origin and looks like a proper
stress strain curve.

True Stress-Strain Curve

Plotting true stress strain curve is a lot easier than the other one.
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To plat true stress-strain curve,

1) I found corresponding force values from the experiment data of the
each travel value
2) Applied ln(l/l0) for each travel data to obtain true strain values,
3) Obtained area of each data by multiplying width found by 1.5 mm.
4) Divided force values to the found areas to obtain stress values for each
data.

Then I plot true stress-true strain values and got this weird graph below.

Added exponential trendline to the graph for the values after the yield stress
to obtain H and n constants for the law of plastic flow. The constants are:

H=0.2845 MPa (which means NOTHING at all)

n=85.898 (again so meaningless value)

The found values above indicates the experiment is not properly done.
Also the asked values are given below:
Yield point: 190 MPa, e=0.0221 at this point.
UTS: 328.32 MPa (which is the max value of the stress column)
Fracture point: 166.77 MPa, e=0.54 at this point.
Percent elongation: [(50 mm + 26.965 mm)/(50 mm)]x100 = 53.92 %
Percent Reduction of Area: [(18.3 mm2 12.03 mm2)/(18.3)]x100 = 34.78 %

Conclusion

In this experiment, a tensile test of a rectangular cross sectioned specimen is

observed. The shape of the engineering stress strain curve fits to the one we
have learned in the lecture, also unloading and loading sequences didnt
make any difference between the fully loaded experiment graphs path as
specified in the lecture.
The only difference of the data we obtained from the testing equipment is
the initial nonlinear part of the graph which is caused by the gaps and
spacing of the equipment and eliminated after a few thousand data acquired
from the device.
The results we got from the data does not seem very proper as the elasticity
modulus should not be something around 8 GPa for a metal (this E value
corresponds to plastic materials) also the true stress strain curve has no
connection with a real true stress strain curve. So there must be a calibration
error or a mistake should have been done in this experiment. Maybe travel
value shouldnt be given as it refers to the total elongation of the specimen
not the gage lengths elongation- instead an extensometer should be used.
Even though I think that the data set is not proper, I applied a logical
procedure to get the values asked in the experiment description sheet.
The engineering stress strain curve looks like a ductile materials graph as it
fractures at the very end of the graph and tends to elongate for a long time
after the UTS, letting necking occur and last for some time which is not
observed at brittle materials experiment.

I would like to talk about the exact material but I cannot be sure about it
because of the improper data, but when I take UTS into account as a
characteristic value, the material looks like as it is unhardened 5059 Al alloy
from the tables.
Possible reasons of errors:

Using total travel of the head of the test machine and not using
extensometer,
If the equipment is not robust enough, displacement of the machine
will also affect the elongation values, which may cause vast errors and
change the results completely,
Recording of the small displacements may not be proper due to the
imprecise measuring equipment,
Creep factor may contribute to the strain value,
Uncontrolled temperature of the test lab,
Reading errors (especially for yield strength reading which is done
manually)
Current area readings with a caliper will definitely cause measuring
errors,
Experiment should be repeated at least 3 times and average values
should have been taken.