University of Sharjah

Department of Mechanical Engineering

(0408203) Strength of Materials Laboratory

Student
Universal Testing Machine
Manual
 Tensile Test

Objectives
 Define the Tensile test.
 Identify the various mechanical properties obtained from the tensile test.
 Compare the experimental results with the theoretical values.
 Compare the properties of common engineering materials.

1. Theoretical Background
2.1 Importance

Tensile Test is an essential test to determine the mechanical properties of materials. It is

important to know the mechanical properties to select the most suitable materials for a certain
engineering application. The Tensile test is often conducted to examine newly developed materials to
obtain the stress-strain curve along with several mechanical properties including the Yield Strength,
Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS), Modulus of elasticity, maximum elongation, Poisson’s Ratio,
Ductility and the Reduction of Area as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Typical Stress-Strain diagram showing the important parameters.

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2.2 Stress and Strain

When applying tensile test on a specimen of a material, the

stress-strain curve is obtained. The test specimen is held in the grips of
the electrically driven testing machine. As the elongation ∆𝐿 is gradually
increased at a constant rate, the axial load 𝐹 is measured at each
increment of the elongation and this is continued until the fracture of the
specimen. Knowing the original cross-sectional area 𝐴𝑜 and the original
gauge length 𝐿𝑜 of the test specimen, the normal stress 𝜎 and the
normal strain 𝜀 may be obtained where:
𝐹
𝜎= (1)
𝐴𝑜

∆𝐿
𝜀= (2)
𝑙𝑜

Figure 2: dashed line represents the initial shape of specimen;

solid lines represent the shape after the application of tensile load.

By obtaining numerous pairs of values of normal stress 𝜎 and normal strain 𝜀, the data points
may be plotted to create the stress-strain diagram of the material. Stress-strain diagrams assume
widely differing forms for various materials such as low-carbon steel, alloy steel (aluminum alloy has
similar shape) and cast iron. Figure 2 illustrates how a specimen would deform under tensile load.

2.3 Hooke’s law

The degree to which a material deforms depends on the magnitude of the applied stress. For
most metals that are stressed in tension and at relatively low levels, stress and strain are proportional
to each other through the relationship:

𝜎 = 𝐸𝜀 (3)

The constant of proportionality 𝐸 is known as the modulus of elasticity or Young’s modulus.

For typical metals the modulus of elasticity ranges between 45 GPa, for magnesium, and 407 GPa, for
tungsten.

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 Tensile Test

2.4 Elastic vs Plastic deformation

Deformation in which stress and strain are proportional is

called elastic deformation; a plot of stress vs strain results in a linear
relationship, as shown in Figure 3. The slope of this linear segment
corresponds to the modulus of elasticity 𝐸. This modulus may be
thought of as stiffness, or a material’s resistance to elastic
deformation. The greater the modulus, the stiffer the material, or the
smaller the elastic strain that results from application of a given
stress. The modulus is an important design parameter used for
computing elastic deflections.

Elastic deformation is nonpermanent, which means that when the

applied load is released, the specimen restores its original shape. As Figure 3: Stress-strain diagram
showing linear elastic deformation
shown in the stress-strain plot in Figure 2, application of the load for loading and unloading cycles.
corresponds to moving from the origin up along the straight line.
Upon release of the load, the line is revered in the opposite direction, back to the origin.

Plastic deformation occurs beyond the elastic region. When the stress is removed, the material does
not go back to its original shape. A dent in a car is a plastic deformation. Note the word “plastic” here
does not refer to strain in a plastic (polymer) material, but rather to permanent strain in any material.
Figure 4 shows a typical Stress-Strain curve including both elastic and plastic regions.

Figure 4: Typical Stress-Strain diagram showing the important parameters.

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 Tensile Test

2.5 Yield Strength (YS) and Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS)

For metals that experience a gradual elastic-plastic transition

(Figure 5), the point of yielding (P) may be determined as the initial
departure from linearity of the stress-strain curve. The position of this
point is hard to measure precisely. Therefore, a convention has been
established where a straight line is constructed parallel to the elastic
portion of the stress-strain curve at some specified strain offset, usually
0.002. The stress corresponding to the intersection of this line and
the stress-strain curve is defined as the Yield Strength (YS) 𝝈𝒚 .

The stress obtained at the highest applied stress is defined as

the Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS), which is the maximum stress a
material can withstand on the stress-strain curve. In many ductile
materials, deformation does not remain uniform. At some point, one
region deforms more than others and a large local decrease in the cross-
sectional area occurs. This locally deformed region is called a “neck.” Figure 5: Yield strength with
0.002 offset.
This phenomenon is known as necking. Because the cross-sectional
area becomes smaller at this point, a lower force is required to continue
its deformation, and the engineering stress, calculated from the original area 𝐴𝑜 , decreases. The
ultimate tensile strength is the stress at which necking begins in ductile metals as can be seen in
Figure 4 (Point D).

2.6 Ductility

The ability of a material to be permanently deformed within the plastic region without
breaking when a stress is applied is called Ductility. Ductility can be measured by two approaches.

1- Percent elongation
2- Percent reduction in area.
𝑙𝑓 −𝑙𝑜
% 𝐸𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = × 100
𝑙𝑜

𝐴𝑜 − 𝐴𝑓
% 𝑅𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 = × 100
𝐴𝑜

Where the subscripts 𝑓 and o represent the value after and before the fracture, respectively.

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 Tensile Test

A Material with high ductility is known as

Ductile Material which is the case for most metals such
steel, copper and aluminum while a material with low
ductility is known as Brittle material such as ceramics
and glass which experience little plastic deformation prior
to fracture. Figure 5 shows the stress-strain graph for a
ductile and a brittle material.

2.7 Resilience and Tensile Toughness

Resilience is the capacity of a material to absorb energy Figure 5: Typical Stress-Strain diagrams for
ductile and brittle materials.
when it is deformed elastically and then, upon
unloading, to have this energy recovered. The associated
property is the modulus of resilience 𝑼𝒓 which is the strain per unit
volume required to stress a material from an unloaded state up to the
point of yielding. Modulus of resilience is calculated as the area
under the elastic region of the tensile stress-strain curve (Yellow
triangle in Figure 6).

1 𝜎𝑦2
𝑈𝑟 = 2 𝜎𝑦 𝜀𝑦 = 2𝐸 (6)

Tensile Toughness is the maximum energy absorbed by a material

prior to fracture. It is obtained by measuring the area under the
engineering stress-strain curve.

Not to be mistaken with Impact Toughness (obtained from the

Impact Test), Tensile Toughness and Impact Toughness are not the Figure 5: Modulus of resilience
is calculated as the area of the
same quantity, but both serve as toughness comparison methods.
yellow triangle.
2.9 True Stress and True Strain

During tensile test, the actual area of the cross

section is continuously decreasing due to
elongation of the gauge. True stress 𝜎𝑡 is the
load 𝐹 divided by the instantaneous area 𝐴 of
the specimen. If the volume of the gauge
remains constant, the instantaneous area 𝐴 is
calculated using the formula

Figure 6: True stress-strain graph.

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 Tensile Test

𝐴𝑜 𝑙𝑜
𝐴= (8)
𝑙
True stress formula:

𝐹
𝜎𝑡 = (9)
𝐴
True strain 𝜀𝑡 is related to engineering strain 𝜀 through the following formula:

𝜀𝑡 = ln(1 + 𝜀) (10)

2. Apparatus
 The machine used in the tensile test of different materials is named as the Universal Testing
Machine.

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3. Procedure
1- Measure the dimensions of your specimen. Diameter and Gauge length for cylindrical
specimens. Width, thickness and gauge length for rectangular specimens.
2- Switch on the UTM and make sure it is connected to the PC. Run “WinTest Analysis”
software and a Control Panel should appear.
3- Set the Crosshead speed to a fast value, typically from 50 to 300 mm/min. Use the black
colored arrows and to move the upper grip position according to the size of your
specimen. Stop the grip once it has reached a desired position.
4- Select the suitable jaws for your specimen shape (cylindrical or rectangular shapes). Secure
the specimen in the jaws by moving the hand screws (you need some force to fully fix the
specimen and prevent it from slipping).
5- Open the WinTest Analysis user interface . Double click on a test method (“Tensile test1”
for rectangular specimens). Click on ‘New’ to create a new test heading. Put the title name,
material name, tester’s name and the test parameters (Pay attention to units while entering the
dimensions).
6- Click on ‘Start Test…’ and a new window will appear. Put your dimensions again in the
‘Information’ box and click ‘OK’.
7- Zero the Force and strain indicators using the zero button . Adjust your grip speed (5
mm/min)
8- Click the upward directed arrow to start the test.
9- Wait until your material fractures, then stop the machine immediately.
10- Click on the results sheet to view the results.
11- You can save your results as a pdf, Excel spreadsheet or as a word file.

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4. Results
Material Name: Mild Steel

Reference Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): 20 GPa

Test 1 (A) Test 2 (B) Test 3 (C) Test 4 (D)

Length (mm)
Width (mm)
Thickness (mm)
Cross-sectional Area (mm2)
Stress in elastic region (N/mm2)
Strain in elastic region (%)
Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2)
Yield Strength (N/mm2)
Maximum Force (N)
UTS (N/mm2)
Maximum Elongation (%)
Width near nicking (mm)
Thickness near nicking (mm)
Area near nicking (mm)
Reduction of Area (%)

Average Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

% Error in Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

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 Tensile Test

Material Name: Aluminum

Reference Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): 10 GPa

Test 1 (A) Test 2 (B) Test 3 (C) Test 4 (D)

Length (mm)
Width (mm)
Thickness (mm)
Cross-sectional Area (mm2)
Stress in elastic region (N/mm2)
Strain in elastic region (%)
Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2)
Yield Strength (N/mm2)
Maximum Force (N)
UTS (N/mm2)
Maximum Elongation (%)
Width near nicking (mm)
Thickness near nicking (mm)
Area near nicking (mm)
Reduction of Area (%)

Average Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

% Error in Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

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Material Name: Brass

Reference Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): 14 GPa

Test 1 (A) Test 2 (B) Test 3 (C) Test 4 (D)

Length (mm)
Width (mm)
Thickness (mm)
Cross-sectional Area (mm2)
Stress in elastic region (N/mm2)
Strain in elastic region (%)
Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2)
Yield Strength (N/mm2)
Maximum Force (N)
UTS (N/mm2)
Maximum Elongation (%)
Width near nicking (mm)
Thickness near nicking (mm)
Area near nicking (mm)
Reduction of Area (%)

Average Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

% Error in Modulus of Elasticity (N/mm2): ___________

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Homework Questions
Five samples have been tested and the results of yield strength () and strain () were as follows:

Sample  (MPa)  (mm/mm)

1 250 0.00135
2 253 0.00128
3 248 0.00130
4 248 0.00131
5 241 0.00123

a) Find the average and the standard deviation for both stress and strain.

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b) Report the measured values with its Uncertainties.

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c) Find the Elastic Modulus and its uncertainty considering the average and standard deviation
(base on error propagation concern).
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d) Round the uncertainty to two significant figures.

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