NOTES ON PHYSICS FOR PREP - LECTURE 6 - SOLIDS

ERNEST YEUNG

Mainly from The MCAT Physics Book, Garrett Biehle. Nova Press. 2000. ISBN:
1-889057-00-2 and General Physics Workbook, Foster Strong. W.H. Freeman and
Company. 1972. ISBN: 0-7167-0339-4
We have been pretending that sticks and strings are absolutely rigid, but we
know that solid objects do stretch and bend and sometimes break.

1. Strain
Consider two rods made of the same material and having the same cross-sectional
area, but the first rod L1 is longer than the second L2 . Apply the same magnitude
of tensile force (that is pulling) to each of both ends - we expect the rod to stretch.
But the longer rod has more material to stretch than the shorter one, so the change
in length ∆l will be greater.
We can “even things out” by taking the ratio ∆l l , which is called strain.

2. Linear Stress
Linear stress occurs when two equal but opposite forces collinear with an axis of
symmetry are applied at opposite ends of a body causing it to lengthen or shorten
along the axis of symmetry.
For all bodies under linear stress,

F ∆l
(1) =Y
A l0

where F A , the force per unit area, strain ∆l/l0 is the actual extension divided by
the original unstressed length, or extension per unit length, Y , Young’s modulus
is characteristic of the material (i.e. type of material). Note that Eqn. (1) is
analogous to Hooke’s law.
Consider two rods of the same length, but different cross-sectional areas. Again,
apply the same magnitude tensile force to the ends. The thicker rod stretches less
than the thinner one. So to “even things out” (i.e. if A is bigger, we need to apply
a bigger F for the rod to stretch the same way as the other rod of smaller A), we
had defined a quantity F A ≡ stress in Eqn. (1).
You might think that it is easier to stretch a rod than to compress it, but it turns
out not to be so (as long as you do not go too far). The shortening ∆l due to a
compressive force (pushing) is the same as the lengthening ∆l due to an equal-sized
tensile force. The Young’s modulus depends only on the material.

Date: Summer 2008.

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2 ERNEST YEUNG

3. Shear Stress
If forces are applied in the plane of opposite faces of a body, instead of perpen-
dicular to these faces as in linear stress, a body twists out of its original shape.
Each thin plane parallel to the stressed faces moves parallel to itself and relative to
its neighbors.
In this case, stress is F/A as before. Strain is defined as x/d = tan β. For most
materials the strain, even for that up to F/A = the elastic limit, is so small that
tan β can usually be replaced by β. Thus
F x F
(2) = n tan β ' n =
A d A
where n is the shear modulus with units [N/m2 ].
Shear is a bit more complicated than compression and tension. Consider a tree,
Figure. The compression force in the trunk is nearly uniform. The shear force in
the large branch to the right is composed of tension at the top of the branch and
compression at the bottom of the branch, as well as pure shear. If you want to
weakn the branch, the most effect place to cut is on top and the least effective
place is in the middle, which is called the neutral layer.
Eqn. (1) and Eqn. (2) holds for large range of forces, but things will break if
you pull them too hard. When Eqns. (1), (2) hold, we say it’s elastic. The point at
which the constituent particles of the material begin to flow and cause the material
to go soft is the elastic limit.

4. Summary
It is helpful to think in terms of a stress (force per area) being applied to a solid,
and this stress causes a strain (displacement per length). For many materials stress
and strain are proportional. Just realizing this proportionality is key to solving
some problems.