1

Module 2 :
STEEL AS A MATERIAL AND ITS
PROPERTIES

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
1. Know the three classification of structural steel and their ASTM designation,
minimum yield stresses and tensile stresses.
2. Know the shape of the typical stress-strain diagram of steel.
3. Know the important points in the stress-strain curve which is relevant in the
structural design using steel as a material.
4. Know the different physical properties of steel.

II. OVERVIEW
STRUCTURAL STEEL

During most of the period from the introduction of structural steel as a major building
material until about 1960, the steel used was classified as carbon steel with the ASTM
designation A7, and had a minimum yield stress of 228 MPa (33 ksi). Most designers
merely refer to “steel” without further identification. Other structural steels, such as a
special corrosion resistant low alloy steel (A242) and a readily weldable steel (A373),
were available but they were rarely used in buildings.

Today, the many steels available to the designer permit use of increased
strength material in highly stressed regions rather than increase the size of the
members. The designer can decide whether maximum rigidity or least weight is
desirable attribute. Corrosion resistance, hence elimination of frequent painting, may be
a highly important factor. Certain steels provide weldability than others; some are more
suitable than others for pressure vessels.

III. COURSE MATERIALS

1.0 CLASSIFICATION OF HOT-ROLLED STRUCTURAL STEEL
1) carbon steel,
2) high-strength low-alloy steel, and
3) alloy steels.

1) Carbon Steel

Steel carbons are divided into four categories based on the percentage of carbon:
• Low carbon (less than 0.15%)
• Mild carbon (0.15 – 0.29%)
• Medium carbon (0.30 – 0.59%)
• High carbon (0.60 – 1.70%)
Structural carbon steels are in the mild carbon category; steel such as A36 has
maximum carbon varying from 0.25 to 0.29 % depending on thickness. Structural
carbon steels exhibits a yield point on a typical stress-strain curve Figure 1.
Increased carbon percentage raises the yield stress but reduces the ductility, and
welding more difficult.

2) High-Strength Low-Alloy Steel

This category includes steels having yield stresses from 275 to 480 MPa
exhibiting the well- defined yield point as shown in Figure 1. The addition to
 2

carbon steels of small amounts of alloys improves some of the mechanical

properties. Whereas carbon steel gain their strength by increasing carbon content,
the alloy elements create increased strength from a fine rather than coarse
microstructure obtained during cooling of the steel. High-strength low-alloy steels
are used as in the as-rolled or normalized condition; i.e., no heat treatment is
used.

3) Alloy Steels
Low alloy steels may be quenched and tempered to obtain yield strength of 550 to
760 MPa (yield strength is usually defined as the stress at 0.2% offset strain). The
heat treatment consist of quenching (rapid cooling with water or oil from at least
9000C to 4000C), then tempering by reheating to at least 6200C and allowing to
cool. Quenching produces martensite, a very hard, strong, and brittle
microstructure. Reheating reduces the strength and hardness somewhat while
increasing the toughness and ductility.

Figure 1: Typical engineering stress-strain curve of steel

2.0 STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF STEEL

Some of the important structural properties of steel are the following:

1) Modulus of Elasticity, E.
The usual range for all steels is 193,000 to 207,000 MPa. The value used for
design is taken as

E = 200,000 MPa

2) Poisson’s Ratio, 
The usual value of  used is that obtained fro the uniaxial stress condition,
where it is the ratio of the transverse strain to longitudinal strain under load.
For structural steels, Poisson’s ratio is approximately 0.3 in the elastic range
where the material is compressible and approaches 0.5 when in the plastic
range where the material is essentially incompressible (i.e. constant
resistance no matter what the strain).

3) Shear Modulus of Elasticity, G.

Loading in pure shear produces a stress-strain curve with a straight line
portion whose slope represents the shear modulus of elasticity. If Poisson’s
 3

ratio  and the tension-compression modulus of elasticity E are known, the

shear modulus G for any elastic material is defined by the theory of elasticity
as
E
G=
2(1 +  )

where:  = Poisson’s ratio equal to 0.30 for steel

For:  = 0.30, G = 77,000 MPa

4) Coefficient of Expansion, . For steel the coefficient of expansion may be

taken as

 = 11.25 x 10-6 / 0C
L =  ( Tf – Ti )

where Tf and Ti are the final and initial temperature, respectively, in degrees
Celsius and L is in meters. L is the change in length due to the change in
temperature.

5) Mass Density and Specific Gravity. The mass density of steel is 7850
kg/m3. The specific gravity is 7.85.

6) Yield Stress, Fy, and Ultimate Strength, Fu.

The stress at which there is s significant increase in the elongation, or strain,
without a corresponding increase in stress The yield point and ultimate
strength of several grades of steel are tabulated as shown.

Fy,
ASTM Fu, Tensile
Steel Minimum
Designation Stress
Type yield Stress
s (MPa)
(MPa)
A36 250 400 - 555
A 53 Gr. B 245 415
290 400
Gr. B
A 320 400
Carbon 500 320 430
Gr. C
345 430
A 501 250 400
A Gr. 50 345 450 – 690
529 Gr. 55 380 485 – 690
Gr. 42 290 415
Gr. 50 345 450
A57
Gr. 55 380 485
2
Gr. 60 415 520
Gr. 65 450 550
High- Gr. I
A 345 485
Strength & II
618
Low-Alloy Gr. III 345 450
50 345 415
A 60 415 520
913 65 450 550
70 485 620
A 992 345 - 450 450
Corrosion 290 435
- A 242 320 460
Resistant 345 485
High- A 588 345 485
Strength
Low-Alloy A 847 345 485
 4

7) Material Toughness
In structural steel design, toughness is a measure of the ability of steel to
resist fracture; i.e. to absorb energy. Material toughness is defined as “the
resistance to unstable crack propagation in the presence of a notch”. Unable
crack propagation produces brittle fracture, as opposed to stable crack
growth of a subcritical crack from fatigue.

8) Fatigue Strength
Repeated loading and unloading, primarily in tension may eventually result in
failure even if the yield stress is never exceeded. The term fatigue means
failure under cyclic loading. It is a progressive failure, the final stage of which
is unstable crack propagation. The fatigue strength is governed by three
variables: (1) the number of cycles of loading, (2) the range of service load
stress (the difference between the maximum and minimum stress), and (3)
the initial size of a flaw. A flaw is a discontinuity, such as an extremely small
crack.

9) Brittle Fracture
Brittle fracture is “a type of catastrophic failure that occurs without prior plastic
deformation and at extremely high speeds”. Fracture behavior is affected by
temperature, loading rate, stress level, flaw size, plate thickness or constraint,
joint geometry and workmanship.

3.0 STRESS-STRAIN BEHAVIOR

The stress-strain curves of Figure 1 are determined using a unit stress obtained by
dividing the load by the original cross-sectional area of the specimen, and the strain
is obtained as the elongation is divided by the original length. Such curves are
known as engineering stress-strain curves and rise to a maximum stress level and
then fall off with increasing strain until they terminate as specimen breaks. The so-
called true-stress/true-strain curve is obtained by using the actual cross section
even after necking down begins and using the instantaneous incremental strain.

Figure 2. Enlarge typical stress-strain curves for different yield stress

Stress-strain curves, as per Figure 2 show a straight line relationship up to a point

known as proportional limit which essentially coincide with the yield point for most
structural steels with yield point not exceeding 450 MPa. For the quenched and
tempered low-alloy steels, the deviation from a straight line occurs gradually, as in
curve (c). Since the term yield point is not appropriate to curve (c), yield strength is
used for the stress at an offset strain of 0.2%; or alternatively, a 0.5% extension
under load, as shown in Figure 2.2. Yield stress is the general term to include the
unit stress at a yield point, when one exist or the yield strength.
 5

The ratio of stress to strain in the initial straight line region is the modulus of
elasticity, or Young Modulus, E, which for structural steels may be taken
approximately as 200,000 MPa. In the straight-line region, loading and unloading
results in no permanent deformation, hence it is the elastic range. The service load
unit stress in steel design is always intended to be safely below the proportional
limit, even though in order to ascertain safety factors against failure or excessive
deformation, knowledge is required of the stress-strain behavior up to a strain about
15 to 20 times the maximum elastic strain.

For steel exhibiting yield points, as curves (a) and (b) of Figure 2, the long
plateau for which essentially constant stress exists is known as the plastic range.
The load and resistance factor design method consciously uses this range. The
higher strength steels typified by curve (c) also have region that might be called the
plastic range; however, in this zone the stress is continuously increasing as strain
increases. For lack of having a region of constant stress with increasing strain, the
steels whose yield stress exceeds 448 MPa (65 ksi) are not permitted to be used
for plastic analysis

For strain greater than 15 to 20 times the maximum elastic strain, the stress
again increases but with a much flatter slope than the original elastic slope.. This
increase in strength is called strain hardening. The slope of the stress-strain curve
is known as the strain-hardening modulus, Strain-hardening range is not
consciously used in design, but certain of the buckling limitations are conservatively
derived to preclude buckling even at strains well beyond onset of strain hardening.

The stress-strain curve also indicates the ductility. Ductility is defined as the
amount of permanent strain up to the point of fracture. Ductility is important
because it permits yielding locally due to high stresses and thus allows the stress
distribution to change.

Figure 3: Typical stress-strain diagram for a mild or low-carbon

structural steel

The typical stress-strain diagram curve shown in Figure 2 is modeled into

Figure 3 which will be used for design purposes. The figure shows the
methodologies for design.
Stress-strain diagrams in Figure 2 present valuable information necessary to
understand how steel will behave in a given situation. Satisfactory steel design
methods cannot be developed unless complete information is available concerning
the stress-strain relationships of the material being used. The important points in
the stress-strain curve are the following

• Proportional limit – it is the largest stress for which Hooke’s law applies,
or the highest point on the linear portion of the stress-strain diagram.
• Elastic limit – the largest stress that a material can withstand without
 6

being permanently deformed. (This value is seldom measured and is

synonymous with the proportional limit. For this reason, the term
proportional elastic limit is sometimes used).
• Yield stress – the stress at which there is s significant increase in the
elongation, or strain, without a corresponding increase in stress. (It is the
first point on the stress-strain diagram where a tangent to the curve is
horizontal).

The yield stress is probably the most important property of steel to the designer as
so many design procedures are based on this value. Beyond the yield stress there
is a range in which a considerable increase in strain occurs without increase in
stress.

• Elastic strain – the strain that occurs before the yield stress
• Plastic strain – the strain that occurs after the yield stress, with no
increase in stress. (Plastic strains are usually 10 to 15 times as large as
the elastic strains).
• Strain-hardening – following the plastic strain, it is a range in which
additional stress is necessary to produce additional strain

Note: The yield point, upper yield and lower yield, in the shape of the stress-strain
diagram varies with the speed of loading, the type of steel and the temperature.

4.0 RESIDUAL STRESSES

Residual stresses are stresses that remain in a member after it has been formed
into a finished product. Such stresses result from plastic deformations, in which
structural steel may result from several sources:
1) uneven cooling which occurs after hot rolling of structural shapes;
2) cold bending or cambering during fabrication;
3) punching of holes and cutting operations during fabrication; and
4) welding

Under ordinary conditions those residual stresses resulting from uneven cooling
and welding are the most important. Actually the important residual stresses are
due to the welding are really the result of uneven cooling.

IV. ACTIVITIES / ASSESSMENT

1. Draw a typical stress-strain curve (mechanics of materials stress-stress curve),
explain the different important points in the curve as enumerated.
a. Proportional limit
b. Elastic limit
c. Yield point
d. Ultimate point
e. Rupture Strength
2. The true steel stress-strain curve is divided into three regions which are (a)
elastic range; (b) plastic range; and (c) strain hardening. Differentiate and ex[lain
each region.