The Stress Tensor

Brian G. Higgins∗
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
University of California
Davis, CA 95616

June 3, 2013

Introduction
In his Principia, Newton defined the concept of a force in terms of the laws
of motion. These laws in effect define the protocol for measuring the force
exerted on a particle (defined as a discrete object) in terms of the rate of
change of momentum of that particle. The extension of these ideas to a
continuum is attributed to Euler in 1775. Euler’s First Law can be stated
as: “The time rate of change of linear momentum of a body relative to the
fixed stars (i.e., an inertial frame of reference) is equal to the sum of forces
acting on the body”. There are essentially two types of forces that can act
on a fluid or continuum: body forces and surface forces.

Body Forces
Body forces are distributed throughout the continuum and are proportional
to the mass. They arise as a consequence of the continuum being placed
in a force field (gravitational, magnetic, electrostatic, or more generally
electromagnetic). We will denote these forces with the symbol b , which
characterizes a vector field.
Body forces can be conservative or nonconservative. A conservative body
force can be expressed as a gradient of a scalar potential, i.e.,

b = −∇φ (1)
∗
email: bghiggins@ucdavis.edu

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where φ denotes the scalar potential. Forces that are directed centrally from
a source are conservative; examples are gravity, electrostatic, and magnetic.
The case of gravity (the body force we will primarily be concerned with in
these notes) we can write

g = −∇φ (2)
Here φ is the scalar potential defined as φ = g ·x
x, where |gg | is the gravitational
constant.

Surface Forces
Surface forces are short-range forces, molecular in origin, and depend on
the interactions of molecules and/or atoms in the body. In a fluid body
each molecule interacts with every other molecule of the fluid, but because
this interaction (e.g., van der Waals) is short range (the penetration depth of
the forces being typically no more than a few tens of nanometers), molecules
only interact strongly with their nearest neighbors. Short-range forces thus
decrease rapidly with increase of distance between interacting molecules,
and are significant only when that distance is of the order of the molecular
separation.
Consider now a fluid element that is acted on by short-range forces aris-
ing from interactions with another element (either a solid or fluid). Since the
short-range forces can act only on a thin layer adjacent to the boundary of
the fluid element, the net force acting on the element due to the short-range
forces is thus determined by the surface area of the element, and the volume
of the element is not directly relevant. Since in a fluid different material
elements may be in relative motion to each other, surface forces may vary
through the fluid.
Suppose we cut out a material volume Vm with surface Am from a fluid
body. This volume feels the influenced of the rest of the fluid body that
surrounds it through the forces acting on the surface Am of the selected
volume. The total force exerted on Vm will be proportional to its area.
The mathematical description of this force is given by the Cauchy stress
principle.

State of Stress: Cauchy’s Stress Principle

Consider a fluid body and imagine we have a small force-detecting test
surface with surface area ∆A that we can immerse in a fluid. We further

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imagine that we can orient our test surface in any direction; the orientation
of our test surface is determined by the outward directed normal n to our
test surface. Let us suppose that the force we measure in our fluid is ∆ff .
We define the stress vector t (nn) at a point in our fluid as

∆ff
t (nn) = lim (3)
∆A→0 ∆A
From this definition it follows that the stress vector t (nn) , also referred to
as the surface traction vector, is the force per unit area acting on our test
surface that is oriented such that its outward directed unit normal is n .
Note that the force transmitted across across our test surface does not nec-
essarily act in a direction normal to our test surface, i.e., t (nn) and n are not
necessarily in alignment.
Of course, there is no practical way to do this thought experiment with-
out disturbing the fluid. But what this thought experiment reveals is that
in order to determine the stress (force per unit area) at a point P in a fluid
we must know the value of n . Clearly, there are an infinite number of stress
vectors at a given point P, each stress vector associated with a different sur-
face orientation for ∆A. It turns out that if we know the value of t for any
3 orthogonal directions, we can determine t for any value of n at the point
P.
Based on the above definition of a body force and the definition of a
surface force, we can write down a mathematical statement of Cauchy’s
First Law which is the balance of linear momentum:
Z Z Z
d
ρ v dV = ρ b dV + t (nn) dA (4)
dt Vm (t) Vm (t) Am (t)

To proceed further we need to explore more fully the properties of the stress
vector t (nn) .
Suppose Vm (t) in Eq. (4) is an arbitrary disk of thickness h. The surface
of this body can be expressed as Am (t) = At (t) + Ab (t) + As (t), where At (t)
is the area of the top part of the disk, Ab (t) is the area bottom part of the
disk, and As (t) is the area of the side of the disk. As before n denotes the
unit outward directed normal, but this time from the surface An (t). The
unit outward directed normal from As (t) is µ . The last term in Eq. (4) can
be represented as
Z Z Z Z
t (nn) dA = t (nn) dA + t (−nn) dA + t (µµ) dA (5)
Am (t) At (t) Ab (t) As (t)

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In terms of averages we can write Eq. (4) as
Z
d
(hρ v iVm ) = hρ b iVm + htt(µµ) iAs + (tt(nn) + t (−nn) )dA (6)
dt An (t)

where we have taken At (t) = Ab (t) = An (t). We now take the limit h → 0,
such that At (t) → 0, and Vm (t) → 0 to get
(Z )


t (nn) = lim t (nn) + t (−nn) dA = 0 (7)
h→0 An (t)

Clearly for arbitrary An (t) we must have

t(nn) = −tt(−nn) (8)

This equation has the form of Newton’s third law, namely that action and
reaction of surface forces are equal and opposite.
Our next goal is to determine the relation between t (nn) and n . The
implication from Cauchy’s stress principle is that the stress vector depends
on n . To determine this relationship we consider a special form for our
material volume Vm (t). The notation used here is that the first index on T
identifies the unit normal direction of the element.
Consider a small tetrahedron shown in Figure 1. The tetrahedron has 3
mutually orthogonal faces (PAB, PBC, PAC) with areas ∆Ax , ∆Ay , ∆Az ,
and a slant face (ABC) with area ∆A. The outward directed unit normals
to these 4 faces are −ii, −jj , −kk , and n, respectively. The balance of linear
momentum applied to our tetrahedron is
Z Z Z
d
ρ v dV = ρ g dV + t (nn) dA (9)
dt Vm (t) Vm (t) Am (t)

Since the volume of our tetrahedron is small we express the integrals in

terms of average values:
Z Z
ρ v dV = ρhvv i∆V, ρ g dV = ρhgg i∆V (10)
Vm (t) Vm (t)

Let the stress acting on the face with outward directed normal −ii be t (−ii) ,
and in a similar way on faces with normals −jj and −kk be t (−jj ) and t (−kk ) .
Thus the surface integral in Eq. (9) can be written as

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 Figure 1: Stete of stress on a tetrahedron

Z Z Z Z Z
t (nn) dA = t (−ii) dA + t (−jj ) dA + t (−kk ) dA + t (nn) dA
Am (t) ∆Ax ∆Ay ∆Az ∆An

= htt(−ii) i∆Ax + htt(−jj ) i∆Ay + htt(−kk ) i∆Az + htt(nn) i∆An

(11)
The surface areas of the 3 mutually orthogonal faces are related to the area
of the slant face ∆An by simple projections
∆Ax = (ii · n )∆An = nx ∆An
∆Ay = (jj · n )∆An = ny ∆An (12)
∆Az = (kk · n )∆An = nz ∆An
Thus our balance for linear momentum becomes
dhvv i 
ρ∆V = ρhgg i∆V + htt(−ii) inx + htt(−jj ) iny + htt(−kk ) inz + htt(nn) i ∆An
dt
(13)

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Dividing through by ρ∆V and placing the body force term on the LHS we
get

dhvv i  ∆An
− ρhgg i = htt(−ii) inx + htt(−jj ) iny + htt(−kk ) inz + htt(nn) i (14)
dt ρ∆V
Now if we let the size of the tetrahedron shrink to zero keeping the shape
of the tetrahedron constant, then ∆An /∆V ≈ 1/L where L is the length
of one of the edges. Since the LHS of Eq. (14) remains constant in this
limiting process, and 1/L → ∞, we require

t (−ii) nx + t (−jj ) ny + t (−kk ) nz + t (nn) = 0 (15)

Note in the limiting process the average values in Eq. (14) are replaced with
point values in Eq. (15) and using Eq. (8) we have

t (nn) = t (ii) nx + t (jj ) ny + t (kk ) nz (16)

This equation shows that t (nn) is a linear combination of the stress vectors
acting on three mutually orthogonal surfaces with unit normals i , j , k .
Thus we can determine t (nn) by knowing the values of the stress on any three
mutually orthogonal faces.

Stress Tensor
In the previous section we showed that the stress vector at a point P in a
fluid can be expressed as


t (nn) = t (ee1 ) n1 + t (ee2 ) n2 + t (ee3 ) n3 (17)

where e 1 , e 2 , e 3 are unit normals on three mutually orthogonal surfaces. To

calculate t (eei ) we consider a point P in the body and cut out a differential
element in the xj − xk plane, with stress vector t (eei ) . For example, consider
the x2 − x3 plane. We can express t (ee1 ) terms of the base vectors e i :

t (ee1 ) = T11e 1 + T12e 2 + T13e 3 (18)

where T11 is the component of t (ee1 ) in the e 1 direction and similar interpre-
tation for T12 and T13 . In this case the unit normal to the x2 − x3 plane is
e 1 . For the x3 − x1 plane, t (ee2 ) has the form

t (ee2 ) = T21e 1 + T22e 2 + T23e 3 (19)

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and for the x1 − x2 plane, t (ee3 ) is given by

t (ee3 ) = T31e 1 + T32e 2 + T33e 3 (20)

We showed earlier that

t (nn) = t (ee1 ) n1 + t (ee2 ) n2 + t (ee3 ) n3 (21)

To write this expression in a compact manner, it is instructive to define a

stress tensor T as
T = Tij e ie j (22)
Then it follows from the definitions (20-22) that

t (nn) = T · n (23)

where
n = n1 e 1 + n2 e 2 + n3 e 3 (24)
Equation (23) relates the stress vector t (nn) to the unit normal n and the
stress tensor T .

Final Remarks
The above development can be found in most textbooks on fluid mechanics.
The following references were helpful in preparing these notes.

References
[1] G. K. Batchelor, Introduction to Fluid Dynamics, Cambridge University
Press , 1967

[2] F. S. Sherman, Viscous Flow, McGraw-Hill, 1990

[3] S. Whitaker, Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Kreiger Publishing

Co.,1968