INTRODUCTION:

DEFORMATION AND MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR

 Deformation (& deformation modes)
 Parameters in Deformation
 Stress  Strain
 Mechanical Behaviour
 Failure
MATERIALS SCIENCE
Part of & A Learner’s Guide
ENGINEERING
AN INTRODUCTORY E-BOOK
Anandh Subramaniam & Kantesh Balani
Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur- 208016
Email: anandh@iitk.ac.in, URL: home.iitk.ac.in/~anandh
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~anandh/E-book.htm
What kind of mechanical behaviour phenomena does one have to understand?
 Phenomenologically mechanical behaviour can be understood as in the flow diagram
below.
 Multiple mechanisms may be associated with these phenomena (e.g. creep can occur by
diffusion, grain boundary sliding etc.).
 These phenomena may lead to the failure of a material#.
 Many of these phenomena may occur concurrently in a material.

Mechanical Behaviour
Pushing a spring Release
Regains
Original length Original length

Elasticity Recoverable deformation

A phenomenological classification
(not a mechanistic one)

Plasticity Permanent deformation

Bending of rod of metal

Fracture Propagation of cracks in a material*

Crack Propagation
Crack Propagation
Fatigue Oscillatory loading

Creep Elongation at constant load (/constant stress) at ‘high’ temperatures

# Failure implies deviation from desired performance. * Eventually can lead to breaking of material.
Notes on the Classification of Mechanical Behaviour
 The classification presented is for ‘convenience’ and many details have been ignored.
 In the uniaxial tension test (loading of specimen in uniaxial tension), dislocation ‘activity’ starts well below
the yield stress (as we shall see later)→ plasticity in the microscale (in the ‘elastic’ region!!).
 Creep also leads to ‘plastic deformation’!
 Fracture in ductile material also involves plasticity at the crack tip level.
 During fatigue loading (loading oscillating in load/stress, usually below the yield stress),
dislocation activity can lead to surface intrusions and extrusions (plastic deformation at the
microscopic level).
 Plastic deformation is volume conserving, while elastic deformation (in general) is not.
 Hydrostatic states of stress tend to cause volume changes, while shear stress tend to cause
shape changes.

 On the application of load/constraint to a material, in may respond in many ways. The

response could be reversible (elastic deformation) and or irreversible (plastic deformation &
fracture).
 The response to the load could be ‘immediate’* or could occur over a period of time.
 In some cases (creep and fatigue) the damage may accumulate over a period of time before
the component/sample ‘fails’.

* More will be said about that, when we talk about anelasticity and creep.
 What kind of mechanisms can lead to ‘failure’?

If failure is considered as deterioration in desired performance*- which could involve changes

in properties and/or shape; then failure can occur by many mechanisms as below.

Mechanisms / Methods by which a Material can FAIL

Elastic deformation

Creep Chemical / Physical

Fatigue Electro-chemical degradation
Plastic Fracture degradation
deformation
Microstructural
Twinning changes
Wear
Slip Twinning
Corrosion Erosion
Etc. Phase transformations
Oxidation
Grain growth

Particle coarsening

* Beyond a certain limit

Common types of deformation
 From a macroscopic perspective we can deform a material in by applying external forces (or
moments) in a few ways. The actual loading on a given component may be complex,
involving combinations of these loading types.
 Tension/Compression  Bending  Shear  Torsion.
 The kind of loading employed is often dependent on the geometry of the sample (e.g.
bending is done on thin long samples, while compression on short cylinders).
 The deformation mechanism involved at the microscopic level has to be separately analyzed.

Tension / Compression
Bending
Modes Bending
of
Deformation Shear

Torsion

Deformed configuration
Torsion
Shear Note: modes of
deformation in other
contexts will be
defined in the topic on
plasticity
Tension Compression
 Deformation: a fundamental perspective
At a more fundamental (material) level there are only two types of deformations$:
 Tension/compression  wherein bond length is increased/decreased
 Usual tension/compression
 During bending
 Shear  bond angle is distorted
 Usual shear
 Torsion*

 In this chapter (and the course), (most of the time) we will assume that the loading
is applied slowly (quasi-statically)  i.e. wave propagation and contact
damage effects can be ignored.
$A general case is a mixture of the two.
* In torsion the strain varies radially outward.
Funda Check What can happen to a ‘material’ body (solid) on the application of external
loads/forces/constraints?

Contraction/dilation
Volume change
What can happen to a
Or a
material body (solid) combination
when we apply Shear Shape change of these
forces/constraints to the
outside of the body
Rigid body rotation Orientation change

Example showing how parts of a single body may have different responses to loading

3-point bend test The region between

supports is stressed

Normal reactions The region outside the supports undergoes

rigid body rotations and is not stressed
 Q&A What distributed and point loads? What is a rigid body? What are contact and
body forces?
 In practice the kind of loads which is applied on materials (structures and mechanisms) is
distributed (i.e. spread over an area). Point load is an idealization. Sharp, pointed loads will
lead to very high pressures/stresses (infinite in the limit of geometrical point). This will
further damage the surface of the material locally.
 Similarly a rigid body is an idealization. A rigid body does not undergo any deformation.
For a rigid body to be in equilibrium the sum of the external forces has to be zero. If there
exists a net force then the body will accelerate (Fresultant = mbody a).
 Forces applied on the surface are called contact forces. On the other hand forces like gravity
act over all the particles in the entire body and are referred to as body forces.

Q&A What is the difference between external force and internal response of a material?
 Let us consider the pulling of a body (say a metal with the elastic limit). At equilibrium the
internal force (P’) is equal and opposite to the external force (P). This can be better visualized
using a cut in the body CC’. The internal force appears due to stretching of the bonds.
Materials have positive stiffness and resist deformation.
 Structures on the other hand may display negative stiffness under special circumstances (like
during buckling).
Funda Check What is the difference between simple and pure shear?

 Usually we apply ‘simple shear’ forces on a body. Though this is called simple shear it is clear that with
just two forces the body will not be in equilibrium (moment balance is not satisfied). This implies that
there has to be additional ‘hidden’ forces (as shown in Fig.1b). These forces ensure moment balance. To
understand this let us consider a block on a table being sheared by force ‘T’. Friction provides the
opposite force on bottom surface (T).
 At the material level, pure shear can be considered as simple shear + rotation of /2 (for small shear).

Fig.1
b
c
a
Note the bottom

For small deformations

Usually we apply simple shear forces on a material

Simple Shear The way the diagram is drawn the body is not in equilibrium!

Pure shear of /2 = Simple shear of  + ACW rotation of /2

Shear
OR
Pure Shear
Simple shear of  = Pure shear of /2 + CW rotation of /2
Types of Deformation
From a common perspective we can have two types of deformation
 Elastic Deformation  wherein body recovers its original shape after removal of ‘force’
 E.g. a compression of a spring  the spring comes back to its original shape after load/force is released
 Plastic Deformation  permanent deformation (body does not recover its shape after
forces are removed
 E.g. bending an Al rod to a new shape  the rod does not come back to its original shape after being bent

Elastic
Deformation
Plastic

 Net deformation in a body can comprise of elastic and plastic parts.

 Elastic deformation may be linear or non-linear.
 There might also be a time dependent component to deformation (i.e. after application of
force, full strain may be realized after some time).
 Plastic deformation may be caused by many mechanisms (slip, twinning, phase transformation
etc.)

More about these later

How to cause elastic deformation?

 Deformation* can be in:

 Force control mode [loads (e.g. hanging weights on a specimen), forces are controlled]
 Displacement control mode [a given displacement imposed on the specimen].
 Elastic deformation survives only for small strains in many materials (e.g. metals and
ceramics). At larger strains other mechanisms of deformation may take over (e.g.
plasticity, fracture, creep etc.). In elastomers like rubber large elastic strains may be obtained.
 Applied load can cause other effects like phase transformation etc. which may also
additional change in the size/shape of the material.
 Deformation (internally represented as stresses and strains) can be caused by other agents
apart from loads (e.g. heat, electric field, magnetic field in appropriate materials).

 What is a spring?
A spring can be thought of as a ‘device’ which changes tensile loading to torsional loading at the fundamental
(material) level!
 What is a conducting solenoid?
A current carrying wire produces circular magnetic fields. A solenoid can be thought of as a ‘device’ to covert
circular fields to a linear field (in the core of the solenoid)  it some sense the opposite of the spring above.
Forces and Stresses
(Here we restrict ourselves to ‘solid bodies’)
 One can only apply forces or loads (we cannot apply stresses!).
 In some sense we can also impose displacements.
 Stresses develop inside the body.
* We can also impose constraints which can result in stresses in the body (we can heat a block
between two ‘rigid’ walls and stresses will develop in the block).

On Heating stresses develop in the body

 Elastic deformation may be linear or non-linear.

 There might also be a time dependent component to deformation (i.e. after application of
force, full strain may be realized after some time.
Stress and Strain
 When a load/force or a displacement is applied to a material stresses and strains develop
within the material. (Note that we cannot apply stresses, they develop within a material in response to an
applied load etc.). Loads/forces are typically applied on the exterior of the material (referred to
as contact forces). Body forces are applied throughout the body (e.g. gravitational force
acts on all particles in a body).
 Stress (ij) and strain (ij) are second order tensor quantities, requiring 9 values to be
prescribed in 3D (4 in 2D).
 In normal materials stress and strain are symmetric tensors (symmetric about the diagonal)
and hence it is enough to specify 6 values in 3D (3 in 2D).
 At a fundamental level stress or strain can be tensile/compressive or shear.
Tensile/compressive stresses lead to volume changes while shear stresses lead to shape
changes. Under a general load the body will undergo both volume and shape changes.
 In 1D*, for small values of strain, stress and strain can be defined as follows:
 = load/area [units: N/m2 or Pascal], (symbol  is sometimes used for shear stresses)
 = change in length/original length [units: dimensionless]
 Strain can be separated into elastic part (which is recoverable) and plastic part (permanent).
 11  12  13   11  12  13 
 ij   21  22  23   ij   21  22  23 
 31  32  33   31  32  33 
* Note that these definitions are applicable only in 1D. The symbol  is also used for the shear components.
Stress and Strain (cotd.) **Note**

 It should be noted that under certain circumstances:

(i) Stress can exist without ‘net’ strain (strain free stress)  heating a body between rigid walls
(ii) Strain can exist without stress (stress free strain)  heating a free-standing body
 Stress free strains are also observed during phase transformation

On Heating

Strain free stress Stress free strain

Why strain? (i.e. strain versus displacement)

 A point in a body may move a lot but may not ‘feel’ any strain (and may not be associated with
strain energy), like in rigid body translation or rotation.
 If a point in the body moves by u (say in the x-direction) and the neighbouring point moves by
(u+u) then the body has been strained (as the bonds have been stretched).
Funda Check What does one imply when he/she says: “I applied stresses” (say shear stresses)?

 We had noted before that we cannot apply stresses  we only apply forces/loads.
 The forces are typically applied on the external surface of the body; but we can apply body
forces too (body forces are applied throughout (or to a part of) the volume of the body; i.e. to
every point in the body).
Origins of body forces include:
(i) gravity mass in a gravitational field,
(ii) magnetic force magnetic object in a magnetic field,
(ii) electric force charged body in a electric field.
 So what does one mean when he/she says that “I applied stress”?!
He/she usually implies that a force was applied on a given area of material (on the surface).
If the force was normal to the surface  tensile/compressive force
If the force was tangential to the surface  shear force
How are stress and strains related to the external loading?
 Even when externally a tension is applied, regions in the material may experience shear
stresses  this is an important aspect as microscopically plastic deformation is caused by
shear stresses and one observes that plastic deformation can be caused by externally
applied tension on a specimen.
 To understand this let us consider a small square region ‘R’ in a specimen.
 Under the action of the applied load (in the elastic region) the square region R becomes a
rhombus. [Plane stress (2D stress) conditions have been assumed here]. A square can
become a rhombus only by the action of shear stresses. This implies that there must be
shear stresses acting on the planes ‘p1’ and ‘p2’ (figure below).
 Note: even if we apply normal loads, shear stresses can develop within the material and
vice-versa.

Normal stresses
on faces not shown

Learn more about State of Stress and Strain

Parameters (Variables) in Deformation
 We have already seen two important parameters (variables) in deformation → , .
 Materials typically ‘soften’ on heating and hence temperature (T) is an important variable.
Materials which are brittle at room temperature may also become ductile due to heating.
 The rate of loading, which translates into strain rate is another variable → 
materials which are ductile under slow rate of loading may behave in a ‘less ductile manner’
which loading rate is faster. Typically the strain rate has to be varied by a few orders of
magnitude to observe appreciable effects.
 At low temperatures strain and strain hardening exponent (n) are important variables.
At high temperatures strain rate and strain rate sensitivity (m) are important variables.
 In terms of the effet on the plastic deformation behaviour of a material, an increase in
strain rate can be visualized as a decrease in temperature.
 We will come across other variables as we go along.

 ,  , , T
Variables in deformation
n m
Strain hardening exponent Strain rate sensitivity