ME 215 ENGINEERING MATERIALS-I

SHEAR PROPERTIES

Dr. Ouzhan YILMAZ

PROPERTIES IN SHEAR
Shear stress plays an important role in the failure of ductile materials (which resist to normal stress by undergoing large plastic deformations, but fails by rupturing under shear stress. )

However, the shear tests have not met wide acceptance and use that have been given to tension test.
This unpopularity may largely be due to the fact that an idea about the shear properties of a material can often be obtained from the tensile properties (eg. Ssy=~0.5Sy). Consequently the shear test are usually conducted to obtain a measure of shear strength for specific applications.

Types of Shear Stresses

There are two main types of shear categorized due to the loadings. (a)Direct Shear Stress (rivets & beams are examples) (b)Torsional Shear Stress (Shafts are subjected to pure torsion)

Differences between shear tests Direct or transverse shear tests are usually employed to obtain a shear strength (Ssy or Ssu) for specific applications
Whereas torsion test is usually employed to evaluate the shear behavior and properties of a material (similar to the tensile test of materials)

Properties in direct shear

Direct shear tests is employed in various ways as seen in figure. The specimen is usually clamped in a fixture and a shearing force F is applied through a shear tool and the max. load F is determined.

3 types of direct shear tests are: Single shear test (a) Double shear test (b) Punch shear test (c)

Properties in direct shear

In direct shear tests, usually the max load F (required to shear the test specimen) is determined. The same maximum load is then converted to the max. direct shear stress (ultimate strength in shear ) via suitable equation. This test however does not provide reliable information for the properties (such as yield strength, stiffness, resilience etc) of material in shear. This test provides only the ultimate strength of material in shear. Even this property is not always reliable due to factors such as: Hardness, sharpness and correct setting of shearing tools Bending stresses and friction between the parts Etc.

Torsion Test
Torsion tests are done on special type of machines which have been developed especially for this purpose. These tests are carried out applying a given twisting moment to one end of a specimen while measuring the deformation as angular displacement at the other end.

Torsion Test
The torsion test is not used in material specification to the same extent as the tension test.
The main reason for lack of popularity of torsion tests arises from the fact that no uniform shear stress can be generated within the material.

Torsion Test
Nevertheless, the torsion test is still useful in determination of material properties such as;

Shear modulus of elasticity G (*),

torsional yield strength Ssy(**) and shear modulus of rupture Su(***).

G (Modulus of Rigidity), (Poissons Ratio)

 Torsion tests can be also carried out on full sized engineering components themselves such as: shafts, twist drills etc. in order to determine their behavior under service conditions.

Plastic deformation is almost uniform over the whole length of specimen, which makes it possible to determine deformations and stress more reliably for highly ductile materials, especially pure metals.

Crank Shaft

Twist drill

Axles

Twisted member

 Materials with very low ductility (or brittle materials), which are often difficult to test in tension, undergo quite measurable deformation in torsion tests which facilitates the determination of their mechanical properties. During torsional tests no neck forms in solid specimens. Consequently the torque increases up to the moment of failure. Thin walled tubes or hollow sections are sometimes used to determine the mechanical properties more accurately, but the danger of buckling in these sections has to be avoided before the material fails from shear stress.

There are two main parts of the Torsion Test Machine;

A- Loading Unit

B- Indicating Unit

Torsion Testing Machine

The two units are seperated from each other by the specimen. While one unit is fixed to the bed the other is free to move along the bed to compensate for the variation in the length of the specimen when subjected to the torsional load. Otherwise the specimen will be subjected to axial stresses which will then disturb the state of pure shear stress

The test specimens for torsional tests are cylindrical, usually having square or hexagonal shaped ends to be hold easily at the chucks, as shown in the figure.

Elastic Behaviour in Torsion

When the one end of a beam is fixed to the wall and a torque is applied to the other free end of the beam, gradually the beam will undergo a rotational deformation as seen in figure. T is applied load Torque and is output and measurement

The deformation here is circumferential and equal to s=R on the surface of the bar.

Stiffness in Torsion (Modulus of Rigidity)

As in the tension test the slope of the - (tau-gamma) curve in elastic range gives the stiffness value;

This equation is valid only for materials which behave linearly in the elastic range.

Modulus of Rigidity G, can also be determined from a materials Youngs Modulus, E, provided that the Poissons ratio, , for that material is known.

As can seen from equation of G, the higher the E, the higher the G value in torsion.

Different materials and G values are given in Table 4.5

Elastic Shear Strength (Ssy)

The elastic shear strength is measured by the maximum stress in the torsion specimen, corresponding to a torque load representing the transition from the elastic to plastic range. For solid bars, Tsy point is not generally apparent due to stress gradient across the diameter (having a non uniform stress distribution over the cross-section of the bar) Contrary to the solid bars which have a non uniform stress distribution over the cross-section of the bar, the thin walled specimens will have a uniform stress across the thickness of the wall and allow an accurate determination of the Ssy point.

Simply, thinner is the wall thickness, more sensitive is the measure of elastic strength since all fibers are at about the same stress.

Because thin walled tubular specimens do not benefit from the strengthening effect of inner fibers which were at lower shear stress values than surface. For Ssy & G determination a tubular specimen with; L 10d and d 10t is recommended. However, if a thin walled tube is subjected to torsion, it would first fail by buckling before the shear strength of material is reached, if the geometry is not in suitable proportion. If L/d and d/t ratios are not kept within limits, tubular specimens generally fail by buckling before the Ssy point is reached. Failure by buckling, however, happens generally if d > 10t.

For thin walled specimens during torsion tests, the both end should be plugged, so that the jaws of the testing machine will not collapse the specimen

The general equation of shear stress for solid specimen is not directly used for tubular specimens and a new equation is derived For tubular thin walled specimens the shear stress is derived as:

So, Shear Elastic Strength is:

where Tsy is the torque at yield point and has to be measured during test

The first start point of yielding is not readily appearent with most materials because of the stress gradient across the diameter of a solid bar.
Outer most fibers are restrained from yielding by the less stressed inner fibers. It is not until considerable yielding has taken place that any noticeable effect is apparent unless the material has very marked upper and lower yield points as shown in figure below.

Consequently, the off-set-yield is commonly empolyed in torsion testing (similar to tension test) to provide a common basis for comparison. The offset angle of twist is generally taken as 4 x 10E-5 radian/mm of gauge length. The elastic shear strength, Ssy , is thus determined employing;

Where Tsy is the torque at proportional limit or the torque at specified offset angle of twist.

Modulus of Resilience
Resilience is the capacity of a material for returning to original dimension after deformation. More mathematically; modulus of resilience is, the elastic energy per unit volume which can be stored in the material with no plastic deformation.

Plastic Behaviour in Torsion

After torsional yield strength limit the shear stress distribution over the cross-section of a specimen is no longer linear.

It is, however, customary for comparison purposes with similar materials, to employ the previous equation. Though they do not represent the actual situation.

Plastic Shear Strength

Plastic shear strength is the appearent maximum strength in torsion. The special name of Modulus of rupture is given to this strength and calculated from,

For purposes of comparison only the modulus of rupture gives a sufficiently accurate index of the ultimate shear strength.

Toughness (Index No.)

Toughness is the ability of material to absorb energy in the plastic range and is defined as To = Tu x f/Volume, similar to the case of tension. To = Sut x f

Types of Torsion Failures

Ductile Materials fracture at 90o to the specimen axis in maximum shear plane. Brittle materials fracture at 45o to the specimen axis in maximum tensile stress plane. Buckling will happen if L/d & d/t ration are not in limits.

Failure of a crankshaft

Fracture Surface of Sector Shaft The fracture surface had circumferential smearing and a slightly off-center final fracture zone

Side View of Sector Shaft The side view of the broken shaft, at right, showed twisting deformation from torsional forces during fracture. The fracture showed no indications of fatigue cracking, which would possibly point to a defect in the shaft as the cause for failure

One of the retention studs was fractured through the shank in a spiral fashion from the region of the first thread. A second stud was intact but cracked in the same manner.

A close-up view of the fractured retention stud. A brittle torsional spiral fracture is observed

Torsion Test Procedure

We have to follow a procedure during torsion test, and it is as follows: The specimens should be prepared in compliance with the standarts and ensure a uniform stress distribution along the length of the specimen. The surface of the specimen should be clear/free from scratches and notches The loading over the specimen have to be pure torsional, and any condition which may cause tension/compression or bending must be eliminated. The torsion load must be applied gradually to give the effect of static loading. Load must be applied until fracture/failure is observed. During loading, values of torque and corresponding angular deformation should be noted at regular intervals (T and vaues) After test: By making use of the measurements (T and vaues), shear stress vs shear strain (- ) graph can be plotted. Torsional yield strenght, shear modulus of rupture and ultimate shear strength values can be calculated. Also the ductility or brittleness of the material can be found. The graph can be plotted whether by hand or by the electrograph of the test machine.