UNIT 8

PLASTIC INSTABILITY (Ductile Material)

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completion of this Unit students will be able to:

 Understand Engineering and true stress-strain profiles of metals

 Evaluate plastic instability mechanism
 Understand plastic parameters of metals

The common criteria in design of PVs/equipment is to maintain the induced stresses

within the elastic range to avoid plastic deformation of consequential plastic
instability
 Plastic Instability is the growth of locally thinned region (neck) in a material
upon application of stress
o Localized and diffuse/spread necking of a material is shown in Fig.8.1

Figure 8.1: Schematic illustration of Plastic Instability

 At plastic instability:
o Necking initiates
o The supportable load begins to decrease
 Plastic instability is due to loss of balance between [cold] Working Hardening
(WH) and [mechanical] Geometric Softening (GS):
o Increase in strength due to WH
 The dislocation density increases with increased cold
deformation and it becomes more difficult for the dislocations to
move through the existing dislocations and, therefore, metal
work or strain hardens
 o Increase in stress due to GS
 Material tends to plastic flow (soften) due to reduction in cross
sectional area at incipient necking. For engineering stress-strain
profile, even reduced external load/stress produces increased
strain

Figure 8.2: Schematic illustration of True vs. Eng. Stress-Strain curves

 Plastic instability is evaluated in terms of Natural/True stress-strain curve (Fig.

8.2), with true stress (σT) and true [plastic] strain (εTP) referred to
instantaneous values (Cf: Engineering stress-strain):

 The strain hardening phenomenon in the plasticity range (εp ≥ 0.002) can be
described by the Power Law (perfectly plastic material)
o No residual strain recovery i.e. all energy of deformation is dissipated
and material does not regain any original geometry:

 Where, K = Strength coefficient and n = Strain hardening

exponent (typically 0.01 < n ≤ 1.0 for metal), are material
 properties dependent on temperature, and tabulated for some
metals e.g. Table 8.1
 K value reflects ability of material to stay in the
plasticity range (K↑ plasticity range↑)
 n is measure of WH capability/intensity (n↑ WH↑ -
important to enhance mechanical properties during
fabrication, but reduced corrosion resistance)
 Conversely, n value reflects material plastic
formability tendency (n↑ Excellent plastic
formability)

Combining Eqs. 8.1 and 8.3, the instantaneous bursting load/force (P):

The total derivative of Eq. 8.4 and including change in length (dL) by the expansion
rule at the maximum load (Pmax):

 dL is introduced for purpose of evaluating material maximum length at

maximum load (Eq. 8.9)

Upto maximum load, the total derivative of the constant volume (AL = AOLO)
condition gives:

Also, by chain rule:

The (dσT/dεTP) term is the rate of strain hardening (or work hardening rate), and
gives the criteria for plastic instability at the maximum load (Fig. 8.3):
For WH↓ GS↑ there is decrease in area (necking) causing localized concentration of
stress due to growth of internal cracks (breaking of atomic bonds) and finally the
material fractures

Figure 8.3: True stress-strain curve illustration of Plastic instability criterion

Differentiation of the Power law at maximum load gives:

Comparison with the plastic instability criterion at maximum load gives ε TP (max) = n
and, therefore, maximum parameters are:
The plasticity Power law assumes ideal/perfectly plastic material of zero yield
strength. In reality many materials are Elastoplastic with linear elasticity-hardening
plasticity behavior and can be well described by the monotonic Ramberg-Osgood
model:

Note that in the elastic range, engineering stress ≈ true stress and engineering strain
≈ true strain. For (σT/K) << 1 the plastic strain component is negligible

The true [fracture] stress (σF) and true [fracture] plastic strain (εF) are defined:

The static loading or monotonic material mechanical properties (E, σY, σUTS, σF, K,
εF, and n) important in selection of material of construction for some ductile metals
are available e.g. Table 8.1

Sample Questions

1) Describe the deformation of a metal when work hardening exceeds geometric

softening
2) Derive the equation for maximum bursting pressure in PVs under internal
pressure
3) Discuss important plastic parameters in selection of PV material of
construction
4) Evaluate in terms of structural sensitive and insensitive material mechanical
property trends in Table 8.1
Table 8.1: Mechanical properties of material