I received yesterday from RG the reproposition of the following ask firstly posed

several years ago by Farhan Khodaee of Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

Is there any relationship between shear strength and tensile strength of a
metal?

Since I read so far a few of not clear answers, I guess it could be useful to
repropose here my previous answer recalling the mechanical bases of the matter,
because the relationship depends on the proper yielding criteria assumed for the
material, that for metals are mainly Tresca and von Mises.

TRESCA: As an example, the Tresca criterion that assumes the maximum shear
stress responsible for the material crisis, for a one-dimensional tensile stress

field gives a ratio between shear strength and tensile strength 0

0.5 , as shown
0
clearly by the Mohr Circle representation for this state of stress.

For a general crisis stress state, in presence of three principal stresses ( I , II , III )
, with I the maximum value, and III the minimum, the yielding shear stress for

the Tresca criterion is 0

I
, as shown by the following Mohr Circle
III

2
representation for this state of stress. It is useful to note that this criterion
determines also the solid planes on which scrolling actually occurs in the
material.
VON MISES: Otherwise, the Von Mises criterion bases crisis on the second
invariant J 2 (TD ) of deviator stress tensor T D , by means of following relationships
respectively valid for principal stress components or for general stress
components:
2
1
J 2 (T D ) ( I II )
2
( II III )
2
( III I)
2 0

6 3

J 2 (TD ) 2
11
2
22
2
33 33
2
( 11 22 22 33 33 11 ) 3( 2
12
2
23
2
31 ) 2
0 .

Then, for a yielding one-dimensional tensile stress field, the ratio between actual
shear strength and tensile strength remains: 0
0.5 .
0

It is very useful for the application of the von Mises yield criterion , in presence of
a general stress state, to use the equivalent stress eq given as follows in terms of
the stress components:
2 2 2 2 2 2
- eq 11 22 33 11 22 22 33 33 11 3( 12 23 31 ) 0

For a two-dimensional stress state we have:

2 2 2
eq 11 22 11 22 3 12 0

And in presence of stress states showing only a and a , as for the de Saint
Venant beam:
2 2
eq 11 3 12 0 .

And for a stress state of pure shear stress , wich for instance occurs in

torsion states, we have:

eq 3 2
0 , and obtain 0 0 / 3 0.577 0

Finally it is possible to assert that the ratio between shear strength and tensile
strength for metal materials, depends from the adopted crisis criterion and
however, technically can vary in the interval (0,5 ; 0,577). It is worth noticing
that experimental tests performed confirm the best fit of experimental tests
with the forecasts of von Mises, as shown in the following figure.
For sake of clarity I enclose the chapter 7 of my book of Structural Mechanics
in Italian language edited by McGraw Hill, wich treats extensively the strength
of materials. For further questions on the matter, please do not hesitate to
contact me on my e-mail : nunsci42@gmail.com

Best regards,

Luciano Nunziante.