Discussion

Mechanical testing plays an important role in evaluating fundamental

properties of engineering materials as well as in developing new materials and in
controlling the quality of materials for use in design and construction. If a material is
to be used as part of an engineering structure that will be subjected to a load, it is
important to know that the material is strong enough and rigid enough to withstand
the loads that it will experience in service. As a result engineers have developed a
number of experimental techniques for mechanical testing of engineering materials
subjected to tension, compression, bending or torsion loading.

Tensile test is widely used to provide a basic design information on the strength
of materials and is an acceptance test for the specification of materials. The major
parameters that describe the stress-strain curve obtained during the tension test are
the tensile strength (UTS), yield strength or yield point (y), elastic modulus (E),
percent elongation (L%) and the reduction in area (RA%). Toughness, Resilience can
also be found by the use of this testing technique.
In this test, a specimen is prepared suitable for gripping into the jaws of the testing
machine type that will be used. The specimen used is approximately uniform over a
gage length (the length within which elongation measurements are done).





Gage length (d
0
)





Tensile specimens


d
o
Tensile specimens are machined from the material to be tested in the desired
orientation and according to the standards. The cross section of the specimen is
usually round, square or rectangular. For metals, a piece of sufficient thickness can
be obtained so that it can be easily machined, a round specimen is commonly used.
For sheet and plate stock, a flat specimen is usually employed.
A tensile load is applied to the specimen until it fractures. Ductility is the materials
ability to stretch or accommodate inelastic deformation without breaking. Another
phenomenon that can be observed of a ductile material undergoing tensile testing is
necking. The deformation is initially uniform along the length but tends to concentrate
in one region as the testing progresses. This can be observed during testing, the cross
sectional area of the highest stress region will visibly reduce.
During the test, the load required to make a certain elongation on the material is
recorded. A load elongation curve is plotted by an x-y recorder, so that the tensile
behavior of the material can be obtained. An engineering stress-strain curve can be
constructed from this load-elongation curve by making the required calculations. Then
the mechanical parameters that we search for can be found by studying on the curve.

Also we can examine the similarities and differences in the stress-strain curve of steel
,aluminum, glass and rubber using below stress-strain curve for each specimen.

Figure 1: The engineering stress versus the engineering strain for steel

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
Steel 1
Steel 2
Steel 3



Figure 1: The engineering stress versus the engineering strain for plastic

True Plastic Strain (m/m)
Tensile testing is used to guarantee the quality of components, materials and finished
products within a wide range industries. Typical applications of tensile testing are
highlighted in the following sections on:

Aerospace Industry :


Automotive Industry :


Figure 3 : The engineering stress versus the engineering strain for Aluminum -
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
0 0.03 0.06 0.09 0.12 0.15 0.18 0.21
Aluminum 1
Aluminum 2
Aluminum 3
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
Calculated
Experimental
Construction Industry :

Electrical and Electronics Industry

Medical Device Industry

Packaging Industry

Pharmaceuticals Industry

Plastics, Rubber and Elastomers Industry

Textiles Industry

Tensile testing is a way of determining how something will react when it is subjected to
pulling apart. Tensile testing is one of the simplest and widely used mechanical tests.
It highlights among other tests due to its simplicity.

Add something more if you want here. Say how tensile test affects and what will
happen if we cant test the tensile strength in the above fields. Thats better.