Theoretical Background

Stress is a physical quantity that expresses the internal forces that neighboring particles of
a material exert on each other. For example, when a solid vertical bar is supporting a weight, each
particle in the bar pulls on the particles immediately above and below it. When a liquid is
under pressure, each particle gets pushed inwards by all the surrounding particles, and, in reaction,
pushes them outwards. These macroscopic forces are actually the average of a very large number
of intermolecular forces and collisions between the particles in those molecules.
Stress inside a material may arise by various mechanisms, such as reaction to external forces
applied to the bulk material (like gravity) or to its surface (like contact forces, external pressure,
or friction). Any strain (deformation) of a solid material generates an internal elastic stress,
analogous to the reaction force of a spring, that tends to restore the material to its original non-
deformed state. In liquids and gases, only deformations that change the volume generate persistent
elastic stress. However, if the deformation is gradually changing with time, even in fluids there will
usually be some viscous stress, opposing that change. Elastic and viscous stresses are usually
combined under the name mechanical stress.
Significant stress may exist even when deformation is negligible or non-existent (a common
assumption when modeling the flow of water). Stress may exist in the absence of external forces;
such built-in stress is important, for example, in prestressed concrete and tempered glass. Stress
may also be imposed on a material without the application of net forces, for example by changes in
temperature or chemical composition, or by external electromagnetic fields (as
in piezoelectric and magnetostrictive materials).
The relation between mechanical stress, deformation, and the rate of change of deformation can be
quite complicated, although a linear approximation may be adequate in practice if the quantities are
small enough. Stress that exceeds certain strength limits of the material will result in permanent
deformation (such as plastic flow, fracture, cavitation) or even change its crystal
structure and chemical composition.
In some branches of engineering, the term stress is occasionally used in a looser sense as a
synonym of "internal force". For example, in the analysis of trusses, it may refer to the total traction
or compression force acting on a beam, rather than the force divided by the area of its cross-section.

Strain is a normalized measure of deformation representing the displacement between
particles in the body relative to a reference length.
A general deformation of a body can be expressed in the form where is the
reference position of material points in the body. Such a measure does not distinguish between rigid
body motions (translations and rotations) and changes in shape (and size) of the body. A
deformation has units of length.
We could, for example, define strain to be

Hence strains are dimensionless and are usually expressed as a decimal fraction, a percentage or
in parts-per notation. Strains measure how much a given deformation differs locally from a rigid-body
deformation.
A strain is in general a tensor quantity. Physical insight into strains can be gained by observing that
a given strain can be decomposed into normal and shear components. The amount of stretch or
compression along material line elements or fibers is the normal strain, and the amount of distortion
associated with the sliding of plane layers over each other is the shear strain, within a deforming
body. This could be applied by elongation, shortening, or volume changes, or angular distortion.
The state of strain at a material point of a continuum body is defined as the totality of all the changes
in length of material lines or fibers, the normal strain, which pass through that point and also the
totality of all the changes in the angle between pairs of lines initially perpendicular to each other,
the shear strain, radiating from this point. However, it is sufficient to know the normal and shear
components of strain on a set of three mutually perpendicular directions.
If there is an increase in length of the material line, the normal strain is called tensile strain,
otherwise, if there is reduction or compression in the length of the material line, it is called
compressive strain.

Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS) or ultimate strength, is
the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before failing or
breaking. Tensile strength is not the same as compressive strength and the values can be quite
different.
Some materials will break sharply, without plastic deformation, in what is called a brittle failure.
Others, which are more ductile, including most metals, will experience some plastic deformation and
possibly necking before fracture.
The UTS is usually found by performing a tensile test and recording the engineering
stress versus strain. The highest point of the stress-strain curve (see point 1 on the engineering
stress/strain diagrams below) is the UTS. It is an intensive property; therefore its value does not
depend on the size of the test specimen. However, it is dependent on other factors, such as the
preparation of the specimen, the presence or otherwise of surface defects, and the temperature of
the test environment and material.
Tensile strengths are rarely used in the design of ductile members, but they are important in brittle
members. They are tabulated for common materials such as alloys, composite
materials, ceramics, plastics, and wood.
Tensile strength is defined as a stress, which is measured as force per unit area. For some non-
homogeneous materials (or for assembled components) it can be reported just as a force or as a
force per unit width. In the SI system, the unit is the pascal (Pa) (or a multiple thereof, often
megapascals (MPa), using the mega- prefix); or, equivalently to pascals, newtons per square metre
(N/m). A United States customary unit is pounds-force per square inch (lbf/in or psi), or kilo-pounds
per square inch (ksi, or sometimes kpsi), which is equal to 1000 psi; kilo-pounds per square inch are
commonly used when measuring tensile strengths.
Tensile strength measures the force required to pull something such as rope, wire, or a structural
beam to the point where it breaks.
The tensile strength of a material is the maximum amount of tensile stress that it can take before
failure, for example breaking.
There are three typical definitions of tensile strength:
Yield strength - The stress a material can withstand without permanent deformation. This is not a
sharply defined point. Yield strength is the stress which will cause a permanent deformation of
0.2% of the original dimension.
Ultimate strength - The maximum stress a material can withstand.
Breaking strength - The stress coordinate on the stress-strain curve at the point of rupture.
yield strength or yield point of a material is defined in engineering and materials
science as the stress at which a material begins to deform plastically. Prior to the yield point
the material will deform elastically and will return to its original shape when the applied stress
is removed. Once the yield point is passed, some fraction of the deformation will be
permanent and non-reversible.
In the three-dimensional space of the principal stresses ( ), an infinite number of
yield points form together ayield surface.
Knowledge of the yield point is vital when designing a component since it generally
represents an upper limit to the load that can be applied. It is also important for the control of
many materials production techniques such as forging, rolling, or pressing. In structural
engineering, this is a soft failure mode which does not normally cause catastrophic
failure orultimate failure unless it accelerates buckling.


An elastic modulus, or modulus of elasticity, is a number that measures an
object or substance's resistance to being deformed elastically (i.e., non-permanently) when a force is
applied to it. The elastic modulus of an object is defined as the slope of
its stress strain curve in the elastic deformation region: A stiffer material will
have a higher elastic modulus. An elastic modulus has the form

where stress is the force causing the deformation divided by the area to which the force is applied
and strain is the ratio of the change in some length parameter caused by the deformation to the
original value of the length parameter. If stress is measured in pascals, then since strain is a
dimensionless quantity, the units of will be pascals as well.
Since the strain equals unity for an object whose length has doubled, the elastic modulus equals the
stress induced in the material by a doubling of length. While this scenario is not generally realistic
because most materials will fail before reaching it, it gives heuristic guidance, because small
fractions of the defining load will operate in exactly the same ratio. Thus, for steel with a Young's
modulus of 30 million psi, a 30 thousand psi load will elongate a 1 inch bar by one thousandth of an
inch; similarly, for metric units, a load of one-thousandth of the modulus (now measured in
gigapascals) will change the length of a one-meter rod by a millimeter.
Specifying how stress and strain are to be measured, including directions, allows for many types
of elastic moduli to be defined. The three primary ones are:
Young's modulus (E) describes tensile elasticity, or the tendency of an object to deform
along an axis when opposing forces are applied along that axis; it is defined as the ratio
oftensile stress to tensile strain. It is often referred to simply as the elastic modulus.
The shear modulus or modulus of rigidity (G or ) describes an object's tendency to shear
(the deformation of shape at constant volume) when acted upon by opposing forces; it is
defined as shear stress over shear strain. The shear modulus is part of the derivation
of viscosity.
The bulk modulus (K) describes volumetric elasticity, or the tendency of an object to deform
in all directions when uniformly loaded in all directions; it is defined as volumetric stress over
volumetric strain, and is the inverse of compressibility. The bulk modulus is an extension of
Young's modulus to three dimensions.
Deformation in continuum mechanics is the transformation of a body from a reference configuration
to a current configuration. A configuration is a set containing the positions of all particles of the body.
A deformation may be caused by external loads, body forces (such as gravity or electromagnetic
forces), or changes in temperature, moisture content, or chemical reactions, etc.
Strain is a description of deformation in terms of relative displacement of particles in the body that
excludes rigid-body motions. Different equivalent choices may be made for the expression of a strain
field depending on whether it is defined with respect to the initial or the final configuration of the body
and on whether the metric tensor or its dual is considered.
In a continuous body, a deformation field results from a stress field induced by applied forces or is
due to changes in the temperature field inside the body. The relation between stresses and induced
strains is expressed by constitutive equations, e.g., Hooke's law for linear elastic materials.
Deformations which are recovered after the stress field has been removed are called elastic
deformations. In this case, the continuum completely recovers its original configuration. On the
other hand, irreversible deformations remain even after stresses have been removed. One type of
irreversible deformation is plastic deformation, which occurs in material bodies after stresses have
attained a certain threshold value known as the elastic limit or yield stress, and are the result of slip,
or dislocation mechanisms at the atomic level. Another type of irreversible deformation is viscous
deformation, which is the irreversible part of viscoelastic deformation.
In the case of elastic deformations, the response function linking strain to the deforming stress is
the compliance tensor of the material.

universal testing machine (UTM), also known as a universal tester,materials testing
machine or materials test frame, is used to test the tensile stress and compressive
strength of materials. It is named after the fact that it can perform many standard tensile and
compression tests on materials, components, and structures.