3/18/2020

(Stresses and Strains)

CE 801
Advanced Structural Mechanics

Fundamental Definitions

 Theory of Structures, actions on the structural elements are

defined as everything which may cause forces inside the
material, deformations, accelerations, etc., or change its
mechanical properties or its internal structure
 These actions are the forces acting on a body, the imposed
displacements, the temperature variations, the chemical
aggressions, the time (aging involved in viscous deformations)
 Here we will consider mainly the effects of applied forces,
imposed displacements and temperature

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Internal force

 Force exerted by a part of a body or of a liquid mass on another part.

These are;
 Axial forces
 shear forces
 bending

 Torsional moments
 Forces may also act on imaginary surfaces defined in the interior of
the material, or on its mass, e.g.;
 gravitational attraction
 electromagnetic forces

External forces
Forces exerted by external entities on a solid body or liquid mass.
External surface forces  External mass forces
External forces acting on the boundary External forces acting on the mass of a
surface of a body. solid body or liquid.
 weight of non-structural parts of a  the weight of the material a
building, equipment, structure is made of (earth gravity
 wind loads on buildings/bridges, force)
 hydrostatic pressure on the  the inertial forces caused by an
upstream face of a dam or on a ship earthquake or by other kinds of
hull, accelerations
 the reaction forces on the supports  impact, vibrations, traction, braking
of a structure, and curve acceleration in vehicles
 aerodynamic pressures in the and planes
fuselage and wings of a plane  external electromagnetic forces

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Fundamental Definitions

 Rigid body motion – displacement of the points of a body which

do not change the distances between the points inside the body.

 Deformation – Variation of the distance between any two points

inside the solid body or the liquid mass

Stress and Strain

 Stress
Physical entity which allows the definition of internal forces in a
way that is independent of the dimensions and geometry of a
solid body or a liquid mass. The stress is the internal force per
surface unit.
 Strain
Physical entity which allows the definition of deformations in a
way that is independent of the dimensions and geometry of a
solid body or a liquid mass. The strain is the variation of the
distance between two points divided by the original distance
(longitudinal strain), or half the variation of a right angle
caused by the deformation (shearing strain).

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Shear Strain
Engineering shear strain γ is a measure, at a
given point, of the distortion (change in shape).
With respect to the two reference axes x1 and x3,
the engineering shear strain γ13 expresses the
increase of the initial 90° angle formed by two
perpendicular infinitesimal linear elements
aligned with these axes.
A shear strain, as it is defined in mechanics, is
one half the value of the engineering shear strain.
Shear strain for the reduction of the 90° angle we
found to take place for the element

Mechanics
 Mechanics aims to find relations between the four main physical entities
defined above (external and internal forces, displacements and
deformations).

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Force-stress Relations

 Relations based on force equilibrium conditions.

 The mathematical entity which describes the stress – the stress

tensor – and relates its components with the external forces.

 This set of relations defines the theory of stresses.

 This theory is completely independent of the properties of the

material the body is made of.

Displacement-strain Relations

 Relations based on kinematic compatibility conditions.

 Defines the strain tensor and relates its components to the

functions describing the displacement of the points of the body.

 This set of relations defines the theory of strain.

 It is also independent of the rheological behavior of material.

 The theory of strain is only valid if the deformations and the

rotations are small enough to be treated as infinitesimal
quantities.

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Constitutive Law
 It defines the rheological behaviour of the material, that is, it
establishes the relations between the stress and strain tensors.
 The material rheology is determined by the complex physical
phenomena that occur in the internal structure of the material, at
the level of atom, molecule, crystal, etc.
As a consequence of this complexity, the material behaviour still cannot be
quantified by deductive means.
 An analytical approach, based on experimental observation, is
used in the definition of the constitutive law.
 The given forces are applied to a specimen of the material and
the corresponding deformations are measured, or vice versa.
 These experimentally obtained force-displacement relations are
then used to characterize the rheological behaviour of the
materials (and structures at macro level).

Stress and its notations

The six stress quantities σx , σy , σz

and τxy= τyx , τyz =τzy , τxz= τzx
describe the stresses acting on
coordinate planes and are called
components of stress

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Components of Strain