Properties of the Engineering

Materials
 Material Properties
• Mechanical Properties
1. Loading, Stress, Strain and Strength.
2. Elasticity, Young’s Modulus and Poisson’s Ratio.
3. Shear Modulus
4. Plasticity and Elasto-Plastic behaviour.
5. Time-Dependent Response (Creep).

• Non-mechanical Properties
1. Thermal Conductivity and Thermal Expansion.
2. Corrosion and Degradation.
 Most general properties of building materials:

Density The mass per unit volume of materials (kg/m3).

Specific The ratio of mass of the material to the mass of
gravity water of the same volume.
Porosity The ratio of the volume of pores to that of the
volume of the bulk materials.
Strength The ability to resist the action of an external
force without breaking.
Elasticity The ability to regain original shape and size after
the removal of external load.
Plasticity The property which enables the formation of
permanent deformation before failure.
Density The mass per unit volume of materials (kg/m3).
Specific The ratio of mass of the material to the mass of
gravity water of the same volume.
Porosity The ratio of the volume of pores to that of the
volume of the bulk materials.

𝑉𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑒
𝑛=
𝑉𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑘
 Exercise
1. What are the density and specific gravity values of
a 100×100×100 mm concrete cube with the
mass of 2233g. 𝜌𝑤 = 1000 𝑘𝑔Τ𝑚3 = 1 𝑔Τ𝑐𝑚3
𝑀 𝑀
𝜌= 𝐺𝑠 =
𝜌𝑤 ∙ 𝑉
𝑉
2. Mass of a 100×100×100 mm concrete cube is
1974 g. When fully wetted the mass reaches to
2333g. Calculate the porosity of
the concrete sample.
𝑉𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑠 (𝑜𝑟 𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑑𝑠)
𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝜀 =
𝑉𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑘
Strength The ability to resist the action of an external
force without breaking.
Elasticity The ability to regain original shape and size after
the removal of external load.
Plasticity The property which enables the formation of
permanent deformation before failure.
Hardness The property to resist abrasion, indentation,
machining/Shaping and scratching.
Ductility The ability to be drawn out or elongated before
rupture occurs.
Brittleness The property opposite to ductility. Material,
having very little property of deformation, either
elastic or plastic is called brittle.
Creep The property to deform progressively, under
constant load, over time.
Stiffness The property of materials to resist deformation.
Fatigue The property to resist cyclically repeated stress.
Stiffness The property of materials to resist deformation.
Hardness The property to resist abrasion, indentation,
machining/Shaping and scratching.
Ductility The ability to be drawn out or elongated before
rupture occurs.
Brittleness The property opposite to ductility. Material,
having very little property of deformation, either
elastic or plastic is called brittle.
Fatigue The property to resist cyclically repeated stress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvHX7l5nPj4
Creep The property to deform progressively, under
constant load, over time.
Impact The quantity of work (energy) required to cause
strength failure per unit volume. It indicates the
toughness of materials.

capability of the material to

resist a suddenly applied
load and is expressed in
terms of energy

Izod impact strength test

or

Charpy impact test

Thermal The property of materials to conduct heat
Conductivity through them.
Corrosion The property to resist the chemical reactions
Resistance with acids, alkalis, gases etc., which tend to
corrode (or oxidize)
 • Mechanical Properties
1. Loads, Stress, Strain and Strength
• Loads are the forces or burdens applied on
materials or structures. Generally, there are two
types of loads.
Static:
All the forces applied on materials or
structures are sustained (no change in
magnitude, direction and place of action).

Dynamic:
Dynamic loading is also called as
transient or periodic loading, which
is opposite to the Static loading.
 • Mechanical Properties
• Stress is defined as the force per unit area of a
cross section of material bodies. There are two
major types of stress:

Normal Stress Shear Stress

When an object is
subjected to an axial
force F ( tensile or When an object is
compressive), there subjected to a shear
is a normal stress on force F, there is a shear
the cross section A: stress on the surface A:
F F
  
A A
Stress:
 F F
 
A A

The unit for stress:

N/m2 or Pa (Pascal)
kN/m2 or kPa (kilo Pascal)
N/mm2 or MPa (Mega Pascal)

Blaise Pascal
Types of stress:
Normal Stress
You tell me!
 You tell me!

Compression Tension Shear

 Example:
Stress at points B & C
(type, amount)?

C
 Example:
𝐹 45 𝑘𝑁
𝜎𝐵 = =
𝐴 150 × 24 𝑚𝑚2

= 12.5 𝑁ൗ 𝑀𝑃𝑎
𝑚𝑚2
B

C
𝐹 45000 𝑁
𝜎𝐶 = =
𝐴 25 × 12 𝑚𝑚2

= 150 𝑁ൗ 𝑀𝑃𝑎
𝑚𝑚2
Tensile
With stress
comes??
 • Mechanical Properties
• Strain is defined as, under a loading, the total
change in dimension of a material divided by
the original dimension of the material.

A rod of length L subjects to a tensile

force F. The rod has a deformation
of extension, ΔL, in length.

The strain of the rod under the load

is:
L

L
* Strain doesn’t have a unit. Why??
 Example: Imagine the prism to
be cut along “B”

P = 100 kN
L1 (Before loading)= 500 mm
L2 (Under load)= 502mm
𝜎 = ? 𝑀𝑃𝑎 B

𝜀 =? 50mm
P P
100m
m

500mm
 Example: 50mm

𝑃 = 100 𝑘𝑁 100mm
𝑃 100 × 1000 𝑁
𝜎= =
𝐴𝐵 100 𝑚𝑚 × 50 𝑚𝑚
B
= 20 𝑁ൗ = 20 𝑀𝑃𝑎
𝑚𝑚2
50mm
P P
100m
m

∆𝐿 𝐿2 − 𝐿1
𝜀= =
𝐿 𝐿1 500mm

502 𝑚𝑚 − 500 𝑚𝑚 2 𝑚𝑚
= = = 0.004
500 𝑚𝑚 500 𝑚𝑚
Strength
 • Mechanical Properties
• Strength is the ability of materials to resist
damages caused by forces.
Because strength is regarded only to the nature of
the material itself regardless of the material’s size and
shape, in engineering practice, Strength of a material
is defined to be the maximum stress that the
material can resist.
So, a material has: Normal Strength
Shear Strength

For example, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of

steel is about 841 MPa, and its ultimate shear strength
(USS) is about 0.75 x UTS
 Exercises

1. A metal wire is 2.5 mm in

diameter and 2 m long. A
tensile force of 12 N is
applied to it and it stretches
0.3 mm. Determine the
stress and strain of the wire
under the load.

2. Calculate the force needed to punch a

hole of 30 mm diameter in a bundle sheets
of metal of 3 mm thick, given the ultimate
shear stress of the metal is 60 MPa.
 Solution 1

∆𝐿 0.3
𝜀= 𝐿
= 2000 =0.00015

http://www.freestudy.co.uk/mech%20prin%20h2/stress.pdf
 Solution 2

http://www.freestudy.co.uk/mech%20prin%20h2/stress.pdf
 • Mechanical Properties
2. Elasticity, Young’s Modulus and
Poisson’s Ratio
• Elasticity
Materials have an instantaneous responsive deformation
to a load, and return to their original shape when the load
is removed -the materials with such a behaviour are called
elastic materials.
Elastic materials obey Hooke’s Law, i.e.
the deformation is proportional to the
force, where k is called the stiffness.

F  k  L
 • Mechanical Properties
• Young’s Modulus (Modulus of Elasticity)
To eliminate the effect of shapes and sizes, Hooke’s law
can be transformed into the form of stress and strain.
Because:
F  A  L  L
Substituting them into  FL 
Hooke’s law produces:  
 AL 

 F L
or expressed as:   E E 
 A  L
E is called Young’s modulus or Modulus of Elasticity,
  E

Slope of the line

 • Mechanical Properties

• Poisson’s Ratio
In an axial tensile test, as the
material is elongated, there is a
reduction of the cross section in
the lateral direction.

In the axial
compression test,
there is a increase of
the cross section.
 L
Longitudinal strain: l 
L
Transverse (lateral) strain:

W W1  W
w  
W W

Poisson’s Ratio is defined as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBnzrBhnzVo
Example:
A bar with square cross sectional area has is 1.5m long. Dimensions on the
Cross section are 1cm. Under a tensile force applied to the bar, the new length and
Cross section dimensions are measured to be 1545mm and 9.91 mm.
Calculate the Poisson's ratio.
Example:
A bar with square cross sectional area has is 1.5m long. Dimensions on the
Cross section are 1cm. Under a tensile force applied to the bar, the new length and
Cross section dimensions are measured to be 1545mm and 9.91 mm.
Calculate the Poisson's ratio.

𝑤1 − 𝑤0 9.91 − 10
𝜀𝑤 𝑤0 10 −0.009
𝜗=− =− =− =− = 0.3
𝜀𝑙 𝑙1 − 𝑙0 1545 − 1500 0.03
𝑙0 1500
 • Mechanical Properties
• General Hooke’s Law
If a homogeneous, isotropic, cubical element is
subjected to three normal stresses in the three
orthogonal directions (x, y, z), the normal strains in
the three directions are:
 x  (  y   z )
x 
E

 y  (  z   x )
y 
E

 z  (  x   y )
z 
E
 • Mechanical Properties

Example

A cube made of an alloy with dimensions

of 50 mm×50 mm×50 mm is placed in a
pressure chamber and subjected to a
pressure 90 MPa. If the Young’s modulus
of the alloy is 100 GPa and Poisson’s
ratio is 0.28, what will be the change of
size of the cube?
 Solution

 x   y   z  90 MPa

x   y  z

 x   ( y   z )
x 
E
 90 e  6  0.28  ( 90 e  6  90 e  6)
  3.96 e  4
100 e  9

x  y  z   x L0  3.96 e  4  0.05  1.98 e  5 ( m )

 • Mechanical Properties

3. Shear Stress, Shear Strain and Shear Modulus G

When subjected to a shear force F. A
shear stress is on surface A:
F

A
There is a shear deformation in x-y plane,
in which a shear strain is defined as:
x
   tan 
L
The two quantities have a relationship:   G
The coefficient, G, is called the Shear Modulus.
 Exercise

1. A reinforcement bar of 3 m long and 0.4 m in

diameter carries an axial load of 50 MN. The steel’s
Young’s Modulus is 200 GPa, calculate the
compressive stress and strain and determine how
much the column is compressed.

2. A circular metal column of E = 210GPa is to support

a load of 500 Tonne. It must not compress more
than 0.1 mm. If the column is 2 m long, calculate the
minimum cross sectional area and the diameter
required.
 Solution 1

http://www.freestudy.co.uk/mech%20prin%20h2/stress.pdf
 Solution 2

0.1 × 10−3 (𝑚) 𝐹 500 × 103 × 9.8 (𝑁)

𝜀= 𝜎= =
2 (𝑚) 𝐴 𝐴

𝜎 = 𝐸𝜀

500 × 103 × 9.8

𝐴= 4𝐴
0.1 × 10 −3 𝑑=
210 × 109 × 𝜋
2
 • Mechanical Properties
4. Plasticity and Elasto-Plastic behaviour

• Plasticity
When the applied load exceeds a specific value, the
material under load will show a permanent
deformation,
i.e. it cannot FULLY return to
the original shape when the
load is removed, and the
permanent deformation is
called the plastic
deformation.
  curve
steel

Most of materials 
exhibit an Elasto-
plastic behaviour,
such as soils,
steels, etc.

Stress vs Strain
curves are plotted to
illustrate elasto- 
plastic behaviour of
materials
 Stress-Strain curve of nonferrous (do not
contain Iron) alloys, such as Aluminium.
• Proportionality
limit (1):
The transition point
between linear and
nonlinear elastic
behaviour.

• Elastic limit (2) /

Yield strength:
The transition
between elastic
and plastic
behaviour.
• Offset yield strength:
For some materials,
accurately identifying
the elastic limit is very
difficult,

In practice, offset yield strength (3) is used to define

the elastic limit:
0.2% offset yield strength is the stress that intercepts
with the line starting at 0.2% strain and parallel to the
elastic line.
 Tangent, secant modulus of elasticity

From the previous aluminium stress-strain curve, it can

be seen that between the proportionality limit and
elastic limit, the material exhibit a non-linear elastic
behaviour.
 Tangent, secant modulus of elasticity

Also there are some materials which exhibit a pure

non-linear elastic behaviour, there is no region of
linear character in - curve.

For the non-linear elastic region, we can use tangent

and secant modulus to describe the material’s elastic
characteristic.
 Tangent modulus is the
slope of tangent at a point
on the - curve

Secant modulus is the slope of

the chord line between the origin
and an arbitrary point on the -
curve
 • Mechanical Properties

5. Time-Dependent Response (Creep)

• Creep is the tendency of a solid material to

move slowly / deform permanently under the
influence of stresses.

Creep is a "time-dependent" deformation.

Creep deformation does not occur suddenly
upon the application of stress. Instead, strain
accumulates as a result of long-term stress.
 • Non-mechanical Properties

6. Thermal Conductivity and Thermal Expansion

• The thermal conductivity is a material property defined by
Fourier’s law (the law of heat conduction). It states:
The rate of heat transfer through a material in one direction
is proportional to the negative gradient of the temperature
in the direction, or mathematically expressed as:

q   k  T
q : heat flux (the rate of heat flow through unit cross section
area), W·m−2
K=Kelvin=-272.15 Celsius
k : the thermal conductivity, W·m−1·K−1,
W=Watt=Joule/Sec
 T : the temperature gradient, K·m−1
 • Non-mechanical Properties

• The thermal expansion

The amount of expansion per unit length (or: Volume) due to

one unit temperature increase. It may be mathematically
expressed as:

L T V T
L  or V 
L V

αL: linear coefficient of thermal expansion

αV: volumetric coefficient of thermal expansion
Questions?