INTRODUCTION:

DEFORMATION AND MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR

Deformation (& deformation modes)

Parameters in Deformation
Stress Strain
Mechanical Behaviour
Failure

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
Release

Pushing a spring

A phenomenological classification
(not a mechanistic one)

Original length

Elasticity

Recoverable deformation

Plasticity

Permanent deformation

Regains
Original length

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

* 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 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 is 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).

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

Plastic
deformation

Fatigue
Fracture

Twinning
Slip
Etc.

Microstructural
changes
Twinning

Particle coarsening

Physical
degradation

Wear

Corrosion

Phase transformations
Grain growth

* Beyond a certain limit

Chemical /
Electro-chemical
degradation

Creep

Oxidation

Erosion

Tension / Compression

Common types of deformation

Modes
of
Deformation

Tension/Compression
Bending
Shear
Torsion

Bending
Shear
Torsion

Bending

Deformed configuration

Shear

Tension

Compression

Note: modes of deformation in other contexts will be defined in the topic on plasticity

Torsion

Deformation: a fundamental perspective

At a more fundamental 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*

$ 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

material body (solid)
when we apply
forces/constraints to the
outside of the body

Shear Shape change

Rigid body rotation Orientation change

Simple Shear
Shear
Pure Shear

Or a
combination
of these

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 Elastic
after being bent

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 typical 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).
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

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.

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
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)
We will come across other variables as we go along.

Variables in deformation

, , , T