Lecture 1

MOM1
Sunday, October 13, 2005

Introduction: How Materials Carry Load

Tension, compression and shear

Tension

Compression

Shear

Stress: Loads applied on a material are distributed over a surface. For example, the point load shown in the following figure might actually be a uniformly distributed load that has been replaced by its equivalent point load. P A

Stress is the load applied per unit area of the surface it is applied on. Normal stress is the stress normal to a surface and is denoted by the symbol " " (sigma). In the above figure the normal stress is uniform over the surface of the bar and is given by

P A

Shear stress is the stress tangent to a surface. If in the following figure the shear stress (tau) that results in the shear load V is uniformly distributed over the surface, then the shear stress can be calculated by dividing the shear force by the area it is applied on.

=
A

V A

The units of stress are the units of load divided by the units of area. In the SI system the unit of stress is "Pa" and in the U.S. system it is "Psi". Pa and Psi are related to the basic units through the following relations
1 Pa = 1 Psi = 1 N 1 m
2

10 6 Pa = 1 MPa 10 3 Psi = 1 Ksi

1 lb 1 in
2

Extension, contraction, shearing

Material element can be extended, compressed, or sheared. The following figure shows how the square section to the left changes its shape during extension, contraction and shearing.

Extension Contraction

Shearing

Strain: Strain is the way engineers represent the distortion of a body. Axial strain (normal strain) in a bar is a measure of the extension of a bar per unit length of the bar before deformation. The following figure shows a bar of initial length lo that is extended by the application of a load to the length l.

lo

l
The axial strain, denoted by (epsilon), in a homogeneously deforming bar is calculated by dividing the amount the bar extends by its initial length. This yield the equation

l lo lo

A positive axial strain represents extension and a negative axial strain represents a contraction. Strain has no units since it is one length divided by another length. Shear strain, denoted by (gamma), is a measure of how the angle between orthogonal lines drawn on an undeformed body changes with deformation. In the following figure the square has been sheared into a parallelogram.

h 1

The shear strain is calculated from the equation

u h

As can be seen from the following figure, the shear strain is equal to the tangent of the change in angle or the two orthogonal sides.

u h

= tan( ) =

u h

The difference between and becomes less and less as the angle (in radians) becomes small. This is since the tangent of an angle, given in radians, can be approximated by the angle for small values of the angle. In most structural materials the shearing is small and we can use the approximation

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