UNIT V LECTURE VI 1

UNIT - V
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES AND DEFORMATION
MECHANISMS
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 2

MECHANICAL
PROPERTIES
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 3

Strength
•The ability of a material to stand up to forces being applied
without it bending, breaking, shattering or deforming in any way.
Elasticity
•The ability of a material to absorb force and flex in different
directions, returning to its original position.
Plasticity
•The ability of a material to be change in shape permanently. 
Ductility
•The ability of a material to change shape (deform) usually by
stretching along its length.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 4

Tensile Strength
•The ability of a material to stretch without breaking or snapping.
Malleability
•The ability of a material to be reshaped in all directions without
cracking.
Toughness
•A characteristic of a material that does not break or shatter when
receiving a blow or under a sudden shock.
Hardness
•The ability of a material to resist scratching, wear and tear and
indentation.
Conductivity
•The ability of a material to conduct electricity.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 5

Creep
•It is the property of the material by virtue of which it deforms
continuously under a steady load.
Brittleness
•It is the property of a material by virtue of which it will fracture
without any deformation.
Stiffness
•It is the property of a material by virtue of which it resists
deformation.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 6

Technological Properties of Metallic

Materials
• Technological properties are those properties that apply during
manufacturing and forming processes using metal. Hence, the
technological properties of metals are:
• Machinability
• Weldability
• Castability and
• formability
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 7

Machinability
• It is the ability of any metal to be machined or the ability of
metals to be cut by machine tools. Examples of machine
operations are turning, milling, and boring.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 8

Formability
• It is the property of the material, which indicates the ease with
which it can be formed in to different types.
WELDABILITY
• The weldability, also known as join ability, of a material refers
to its ability to be welded. A material's weldability is used to
determine the welding process and to compare the final weld
quality to other materials.
CASTABILITY
• The ability of materials to set in a mould when mixed with
water and a bonding agent
Factors Affecting Mechanical Properties

The mechanical properties of materials are affected by various

factors
1. Grain size
2. Heat treatment
3. Atmospherics exposure
4. Low and high temperature
 Effect of Grain size

The metals are composed of crystals (or) grains. If the

grain size of a metal is small, it is called a fine grained
metal, on the other hand, when the grain size is
comparatively large, then it is called a coarse grained
metal.
A fine grained metal has a greater tensile and fatigue
strength. It can be easily work hardened.
A coarse grain causes surface roughness.
Coarse grain metal is difficult to polish.
Effect of Heat Treatment

• Mechanical properties like ductility hardness, tensile strength,

toughness and shock resistance can be improved by heat treatment.
Heat treatment is generally done for the following purposes:
• To refine the grain and improve mechinability.
• To relieve the internal stresses induced in the metals during cold
and hot working of the metals.
• To improve resistance to corrosion.
• To modify the structure, either coarse grained or fine grained.
• To improve chemical, magnetic, electrical and thermal properties.
• To improve mechanical properties like ductility, hardness, tensile
strength, shock resistance etc.
Effect of Atmospheric Exposure

• Most of the metals get oxidized when exposed to the atmospheric.

• Due to oxidation, of metal surface, a film is formed.
• The presence of moisture, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and
other corrosive conditions decrease the electrical resistivity of
metals.

The atmospheric effect on the metal depends on the following:

• Characteristics properties of the metal
• Value of the protective film on its surface
• Presence of certain reducing agents
• Local cells formed due to development of cracks and
discontinuity on the protective film surface.
Effect of low temperature

• Decrease in temperature there is an increase in the tensile strength and

yield strength of all metals.
• Alloys of nickel, copper and aluminium retain most of their ductility
and toughness at low temperature.
• For mild steel, the elongation and reduction in cross – sectional area is
satisfactory upto - 180°c but after that it goes down to a large extent.
• Near absolute zero temperature many metals exhibit the phenomenon
of super conductivity
• Below - 100°c non-ferrous metals show better properties than ferro
metals.
• Low temperature causes low thermal vibrations and lattice parameters
are stabilized.
Effect of high temperature

• Field stress and ultimate tensile strength decrease with rise in

temperature
• Stiffness and fracture stress of many metals also decrease with
increasing temperature
• At high temperatures, the toughness of steel is reduced.
• At high temperature, creep takes place and the material fails
even at a very small stress.
• Due to rise in temperature, there is a corresponding rise in
thermal vibration of atoms causing changes in structural
properties.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 15

DEFORMATION
MECHANISMS
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 16

Deformation of metals
• When a force is applied on a metal piece, then the size and
shape will be altered.
• Any changes in metal is called deformation of metals.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 17

Types of deformation
• Elastic deformation
• Plastic deformation
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 18

Mechanism of plastic deformation

• Slip
• Twinning
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 19

Deformation by slip
• Slip is the prominent mechanism of plastic
deformation in metals.
• It involves sliding of blocks of crystal
over one other along definite crystallographic planes, called slip
planes.
• It is analogous to a deck of cards when it is pushed from one
end. Slip occurs when shear stress applied exceeds a critical
value. 
• During slip each atom usually moves same integral number of
atomic distances along the slip plane producing a step, but the
orientation of the crystal remains the same.   
UNIT V LECTURE VI 20
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 21

Deformation by twinning
• Portion of crystal takes up an orientation that is related to
the orientation of the rest of the untwined lattice in a definite, 
symmetrical way.
• The twinned portion of the crystal is a mirror image of the 
parent crystal.
• The plane of symmetry is called twinning plane.
• The important role of twinning in plastic deformation is
that it causes changes in plane orientation so that further slip
can occur.
UNIT V LECTURE VI 22
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 23

FRACTURE MECHANISM
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 24

Fracture
• Fracture is the separation of a specimen info two or more parts by an
applied stress.

Fracture takes place in two stages:

(i) initial formation of crack and
(ii) spreading of crack.

Depend upon the type of materials, the applied load, state of stress and
temperature metals have different types of fracture.
Types of fracture
• Brittle Fracture
• Ductile Fracture
• Fatigue Fracture
• Creep Fracture
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 25

Fracture

• Fracture is usually undesirable in engineering applications.

• Flaws such as surface cracks lower the stress for brittle fracture
where as line defects are responsible for initiating ductile
fractures.
• Different types of fracture
 26

Brittle vs. Ductile Fracture

 UNIT V LECTURE 5 27

Brittle Fracture

• Brittle fracture is the failure of a material with minimum of

plastic deformation. If the broken pieces of a brittle fracture are
fitted together, the original shape & dimensions of the specimen
are restored.
• Brittle fracture is defined as fracture which occurs at or below
the elastic limit of a material.
The brittle fracture increases with
• Increasing strain rate
• Decreasing temperature
• Stress concentration conditions produced by a notch.
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 28

Salient Features of Brittle Fracture

• Brittle fracture occurs when a small crackle in materials grows.
Growth continues until fracture occurs.
• The atoms at the surfaces do not have as many neighbors as
those in the interior of a solid and therefore they form fever
bonds. That implies, surface atoms are at a higher energy than a
plane of interior atom. As a result of Brittle fracture destroying
the inter atomic bonds by normal stresses.
• In metals brittle fracture is characterized by rate of crack
propagation with minimum energy of absorption.
• In brittle fracture, adjacent parts of the metal are separated by
stresses normal to the fracture surface.
• Brittle fracture occurs along characteristics crystallographic
planes called as cleavage planes. The fracture is termed as
cleavage fracture.
• Brittle fracture does not produce plastic deformation, so that it
requires less energy than a ductile failure.
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 29

Mechanism of Brittle Fracture

• The mechanism of Brittle fracture is explained by Griffith
theory.
• Griffith postulated that in a brittle material there are always
presence of micro cracks which act to concentrated the stress
at their tips.
• The crack could come from a number of source, e.g. as a
collection of dislocations, as flow occurred during
solidification or a surface scratch.
• In order to explain the mechanism of ideal brittle fracture, let
us consider the stress distribution in a specimen under
constant velocity in the vicinity of crack.
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 30

Mechanism of Brittle Fracture

 = 2 E
e

Where,
• e is half of the crack length,
•  is the true surface energy
• E is the Young's modulus.
• the stress is inversely proportional to the square root of the crack length.
Hence the tensile strength of a completely brittle material is determined by
the length of the largest crack existing before loading.
• For ductile materials there is always some plastic deformation before
fracture. This involves an additional energy term p. Therefore the fracture
strength is given by
1

 = 2E  2

 e 

 31

Brittle Fracture
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 32

Ductile Fracture
• Ductile fracture is defined as the fracture which takes place by a
slow propagation of crack with considerable amount of plastic
deformation.
There are three successive events involved in a ductile
fracture.
• The specimen begins necking and minute cavities form in the
necked region. This is the region in which the plastic
deformation is concentrated. It indicates that the formation of
cavities is closely linked to plastic deformation.
• It has been observed that during the formation of neck small
micro cracks are formed at the centre of the specimen due to the
combination of dislocations.
• Finally these cracks grow out ward to the surface of the
specimen in a direction 45° to the tensile axis resulting in a cup-
end-cone-type fracture 0
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 33

Ductile Fracture
• An important characteristic of ductile fracture is that it occurs
through a slow tearing of the metal with the expenditure of
considerable energy.
• The fracture of ductile materials can also explained in terms of
work-hardening coupled with crack-nucleation and growth.
• The initial cavities are often observed to form at foreign inclusions
where gliding dislocations can pile up and produce sufficient stress
to form a void or micro-crack.
• Consider a specimen subjected to slow increasing tensile load.
When the elastic limit is exceeded, the material beings to work
harden.
• Increasing the load, increasing the permanent elongation and
simultaneously decrease the cross sectional area.
• The decrease in area leads to the formation of a neck in the
specimen, as illustrated earlier.
 34

Ductile Fracture
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 35

Ductile Fracture
• The neck region has a high dislocation density and the material is subjected to a
complex stress.
• The dislocations are separated from each other because of the repulsive inter atomic
forces.
• As the resolved shear stress on the slip plane increase, the dislocation comes closed
together.
• The crack forms due to high shear stress and the presence of low angle grain
boundaries.
• Once a crack is formed, it can grow or elongated by means of dislocations which slip.
• Crack propagation is along the slip plane for this mechanism.
• Once crack grows at the expense of others and finally cracks growth results in failure.
 36

Brittle vs. Ductile Fracture

• Ductile materials - extensive plastic deformation and energy

absorption (“toughness”) before fracture
• Brittle materials - little plastic deformation and low energy
absorption before fracture
 37

Ductile Fracture
Comparison between Brittle and Ductile fracture
Ductile fracture Brittle fracture

 Material fractures after plastic deformation  Material fractures with very little or no plastic
and slow propagation of crack deformation.

 Surface obtained at the fracture is dull or  Surface obtained at the fracture is shining and
fibrous in appearance crystalling appearance

 It occurs when the material is in plastic  It occurs when the material is in elastic
condition. condition.

 It is characterized by the formation of cup  It is characterized by separation of normal to

and cone tensile stress.

 The tendency of ductile fracture is increased  The tendency brittle fracture is increased by
by dislocations and other defects in metals. decreasing temperature, and increasing strain
rate.

 There is reduction in cross – sectional area of  There is no change in the cross – sectional area.
the specimen
UNIT V LECTURE 5 38
 39
Ductile to Brittle Transition
The results of impact tests are absorbed energy, usually as a function of temperature. The
ABSORBED ENERGY vs. TEMPERATURE curves for many materials will show a sharp
decrease when the temperature is lowered to some point. This point is called the ductile to
brittle transition temperature (relatively narrow temperature range) .

A typical ductile to brittle transition as a function of temperature. The properties of

BCC carbon steel and FCC stainless steel, where the FCC crystal structure typically
leads to higher absorbed energies and no transition temperature.
 40

Transition Temperatures
• BCC metals have transition temperatures
• FCC metals do not
• Can use FCC metals at low temperatures (eg Austenitic
Stainless Steel)
 41
Brittle Fracture
Failure of Liberty ships in WW II - Low-carbon steels were ductile at RT tensile
tests, they became brittle when exposed to lower-temperature ocean
environmets.The ships were built and used in the Pacific Ocean but when they
were employed in the Atlantic Ocean, which is colder, the ship’s material
underwent a ductile to brittle transition.
 42
Alloying usually shifts the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature

Carbon content increases the brittleness

 43

Transition Temperatures
• As temperature decreases a ductile material can become
brittle - ductile-to-brittle transition

• The transition temperature is the temp at which a material changes from

ductile-to-brittle behavior

• Alloying usually increases the ductile-to-brittle transition

temperature. FCC metals remain ductile down to very
low temperatures. For ceramics, this type of transition
occurs at much higher temperatures than for metals.
 44
The fracture surface

Ductile → a dimpled texture

Brittle → cleavage surface

cleavage : The tendency of certain minerals to break along distinct planes in

their crystal structures where the bonds are weakest

Near the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature, the fracture surface exhibits

a mixed texture
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 45

Fatigue Fracture
• Fatigue fracture is defined as the fracture which takes place under repeatedly
applied stresses.
• It will occur at stresses well before the tensile strength of the materials.
• The tendency of fatigue fracture increases with the increase in temperature and
higher rate of straining.
• The fatigue fracture takes place due to the micro cracks at the surface of the
materials.
• It results in, to and fro motion of dislocations near the surface.
• The micro cracks act as the points of stress concentration.
• For every cycle of stress application the excessive stress helps to propagate the
crack.
• In ductile materials, the crack grows slowly and the fracture takes place rapidly.
• But in brittle materials, the crack grows to a critical size and propagates rapidly
through the material.
 46

Fatigue
Fatigue failures are often easy to identify.
The fracture surface near the origin is usually smooth (Beach mark-crack
initiation point). The surface becomes rougher as the crack increases in size.

Striations (concentric line patterns): the slow cyclic build up of crack growth
from a surface intrusion. Striations are on a much finer scale and show the
position of the crack tip after each cycle.

Granular portion of the fracture surface: rapid crack propagation at the time of
catastrophic failure
 47

Fatigue
• Repeated, also called cyclic loads resulting in cyclic stresses can
lead to microscopic physical damage.
• Accumulation of this microscopic damage with continued cycling
is possible until it develops into a macroscopic crack such as
cracks that may lead to failure
• Fatigue: Damage progression to failure due to repeated or cyclic
loading at amplitudes considerably lower than tensile or yield
strengths of material under a static load
• Estimated to causes 90 % of all failures of metallic structures
(bridges, aircraft, machine components, etc.)
• Fatigue failure is brittle-like (relatively little plastic deformation) -
even in normally ductile materials. Thus sudden and catastrophic!
 48

Dynamic Loading and Fatigue

 UNIT V LECTURE VI 49

Types of fatigue loading

1.Completely reversed cycle of stress:
2. repeated stress cycles
3. irregular or random stress cycle:
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 50

Completely reversed cycle of stress

• Illustrates the type of fatigue loading where a member is
subjected to opposite loads alternately with a means of zero.
• For example bending of steel wire continuously in either
direction leads to alternate tensile and compressive stresses on
its surface layers and failure fatigue.
• If the applied load changes from any magnitude in one direction
to the same magnitude in the opposite direction, the loading is
termed completely reversed,
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 51

Repeated stress cycles

• Type of fatigue loading where a member is subjected to only
tension but to various degrees.
• A spring subjected to repeated tension as in a toy would lead to
fatigue failure.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 52

Irregular or random stress cycle

This type of fatigue loading where a member could be
subjected to irregular loads just as in the case of an aircraft wing
subjected to wind loads
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 53

Fatigue limit or Endurance limit (σE)

• It is stress below which a material will not fail for any number
of cycles.
• For ferrous materials it is approximately half of the ultimate
tensile strength.
• For non-ferrous metal since there is no fatigue limit.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 54

• Endurance limit
It is taken to be the stress at which it endures, N number
of cycles without failure .N is usually taken as 5 x 108 cycles
for non-ferrous metals.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 55

Factors affecting fatigue

Effect of stress concentration
Size effect
Surface Roughness
Surface Residual Stress
Effect of temperature
Effect of metallurgical variables
EFFECT OF STRESS CONCENTRATION
•It is most responsible for the majority of fatigue failures
• All m/c elements contain stress raisers like fillets, key ways,
screw threads, porosity etc. fatigue cracks are nucleated in the
region of such geometrical irregularities.
• The actual effectiveness of stress concentration is measured by
the fatigue strength reduction factor Kf

Kf = σn / σnI

σn = the fatigue strength of a member without any stress

concentration

σnI = the fatigue strength of the same member with the specified
stress concentration.
• Fatigue failure by stress concentration can be minimized by
• Reducing the avoidable stress-raisers
• Careful design and
• The prevention of stress raisers by careful machining and
fabrication.
SIZE EFFECT:
The strength of large members is lower than that of
small specimens.
This may be due to two reasons.
• The larger member will have a larger distribution
of weak points than the smaller one and on an average,
fails at a lower stress.
• Larger members have larger surface Ares. This is
important because the imperfections that cause fatigue
failure are usually at the surface.
Effect of size:
•Increasing the size (especially section thickness)
results in larger surface area and creation of
stresses.
•This factor leads to increase in the probability
of crack initiation.
•This factor must be kept in mind while
designing large sized components.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 61

SURFACE ROUGHNESS:
• Almost all fatigue cracks nucleate at the surface of the
members.
• The conditions of the surface roughness and surface oxidation
or corrosion are very important.
• Experiments have shown that different surface finishes of the
same material will show different fatigue strength.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 62

SURFACE RESIDUAL STRESS:

•Residual stresses are nothing but locked up stresses which are
present in a part even when it is not subjected to an external
force.

• Residual stresses arise during casting or during cold working

when the plastic deformation would not be uniform throughout
the cross section of the part.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 63

Effect of metallurgical variables

•Fatigue strength generally increases with increase in UTS
•Fatigue strength of quenched & tempered steels (tempered
martensitic structure) have better fatigue strength
•Finer grain size show better fatigue strength than coarser grain
size.
•Non-metallic inclusions either at surface or sub-surface reduces'
the fatigue strength
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 64

EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE:

• Fatigue tests on metals carried out at below room

temperature shows that fatigue strength increases
with decreasing temperature.
 Environmental Effects
• Environment. Corrosion has complex interactive effect
with fatigue (attacks surface and creates brittle oxide
film, which cracks and pits to cause stress
concentrations).
• Often in practice, there are modifying factors for the
above applied to the equation for the endurance limit.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 66

The S-N curve

• A very useful way to visualize time to failure for a specific
material is with the S-N curve.
• The "S-N" means stress verse cycles to failure, which when
plotted uses the stress amplitude, sa plotted on the vertical axis
and the logarithm of the number of cycles to failure.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 67

• The significance of the fatigue limit is that if the material is

loaded below this stress, then it will not fail, regardless of the
number of times it is loaded.
• Material such as aluminum, copper and magnesium do not
show a fatigue limit, therefor they will fail at any stress and
number of cycles.
• Other important terms are fatigue strength and fatigue life.
• The stress at which failure occurs for a given number of cycles
is the fatigue strength.
• The number of cycles required for a material to fail at a certain
stress in fatigue life.
UNIT V LECTURE VI 68
 Fatigue: S—N curves (II)

Fatigue limit (some Fe and Ti alloys)

S—N curve becomes horizontal at large N
Stress amplitude below which the material never fails, no
matter how large the number of cycles is
 Fatigue: S—N curves (III)

Most alloys: S decreases with N.

Fatigue strength: Stress at which fracture occurs after
specified number of cycles (e.g. 107)
Fatigue life: Number of cycles to fail at specified stress level
 UNIT V LECTURE 5 71

Creep Fracture
• Creep fracture is defined as the fracture which takes place due to creeping
of materials under steady loading.
• It occurs in metals like iron, copper & nickel at high temperatures. The
tendency of creep fracture increases with the increase in temperature and
higher rate of straining.
• The creep fracture takes place due to shearing of grain boundary at
moderate stresses and temperatures and movement of dislocation from
one slip to another at higher stresses and temperatures.
• The movement of whole grains relation of each other causes cracks along
the grain boundaries, which act as point of high stress concentration.
• When one crack becomes larger it spreads slowly across the member until
fracture takes place.
• This type of fracture usually occurs when small stresses are applied for a
longer period.
• The creep fracture is affected by grain size, strain hardening, heat
treatment and alloying.
Stages of creep
Stages of creep

1. Instantaneous deformation, mainly elastic.

2. Primary/transient creep. Slope of strain vs. time
decreases with time: work-hardening
3. Secondary/steady-state creep. Rate of straining
constant: work-hardening and recovery.
4. Tertiary. Rapidly accelerating strain rate up to
failure: formation of internal cracks, voids, grain
boundary separation, necking, etc.
 Parameters of creep behavior
Secondary/steady-state creep:
Longest duration
Long-life applications
 s   / t
 (creep rate)
Time to rupture ( rupture lifetime, tr):
Important for short-life creep
/t

tr
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 75

MECHANICAL TEST OF
METALS
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 76

TENSILE TEST
• Tensile testing, also known as tension testing, is a
fundamental materials science test in which a sample is
subjected to a controlled tension until failure.
• The results from the test are commonly used to select a material
for an application, for quality control, and to predict how a
material will react under other types of forces.
• From these measurements the following properties can also be
determined: Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, yield strength,
and strain-hardening characteristics.
•
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 77

• Tensile specimen
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 78

• EQUIPMENT
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 79

• STRESS–STRAIN CURVE
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 80

HARDNESS TEST
• Hardness, as a mechanical property, is the resistance of a
material to surface penetration.
• Therefore, most hardness tests involve measuring the amount of
force required to implant a specified indentation in the surface
of a specimen OR the size of the indentation produced from
applying a specified load.
• The indenter used varies with the test selected, but is generally
hardened steel or diamond.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 81

• Common hardness tests include the Rockwell and Brinell. Other

test procedures used include the scleroscope, surface abrasion
testing, Vickers, and Tukon-Knoop.
• Brinell Hardness Test
• Vickers hardness Test
• Rockwell Hardness Test
UNIT V LECTURE VI 82
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 83

Impact Test
• Impact Testing, ASTM E23 and IS/ BS Standard
• The impact test is a method for evaluating the toughness
and notch sensitivity of engineering materials. It is usually
used to test the toughness of metals, but similar tests are
used for polymers, ceramics and composites. Metal
industry sectors include Oil and Gas, Aerospace, Power
Generation, Automotive, and Nuclear. 
UNIT V LECTURE VI 84
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 85

Charpy Impact Test
•A test specimen is machined to a 10mm x 10mm (full size)
cross-section, with either a "V" or "U" notch. Sub-size
specimens are used where the material thickness is
restricted. Specimens can be tested down to cryogenic
temperatures.
•The Charpy impact test is a dynamic test in which a test
piece U-notched or V-notched in the middle and supported
at each end, is broken by a single blow of a freely swinging
pendulum. The energy absorbed is measured. This absorbed
energy is a measure of the impact strength of material.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 86

Izod Impact Test
•The test specimen is machined to a square or round section,
with either one , two or three notches. The specimen is
clamped vertically on the anvil with the notch facing the
Hammer.
•The Izod impact test is a dynamic test in which a test piece
V-notched test piece, gripped vertically, is broken by a
single blow of a freely swinging pendulum. The blow is
struck on the same face as the notch and at the fixed height
above it. The energy absorbed is measured. This absorbed
energy is a measure of the impact strength of material.
 UNIT V LECTURE VI 87

Fatigue
• It has long been known that a component subjected to
fluctuating stresses may fail at stress levels much lower than its
monotonic fracture strength, due to a process called Fatigue.
• In several applications, components have to withstand different
kinds of load at different times .

• Materials subjected to these fluctuating or repeated load tends

to show a behavior which is different from what they show
under steady loads.
UNIT V LECTURE VI 88
 Creep
Time-dependent deformation due to
constant load at high temperature
(> 0.4 Tm)
Examples: turbine blades, steam generators.

Creep test:

Furnace

Creep testing
 Creep: stress and temperature effects
With increasing stress or temperature:
 The instantaneous strain increases
 The steady-state creep rate increases
 The time to rupture decreases
 Creep: stress and temperature effects
Stress/temperature dependence of the steady-state creep rate can be
illustrated by
 Mechanisms of Creep
Different mechanisms act in different materials and under different loading and
temperature conditions:
 Dislocation Glide
 Dislocation Creep
 Diffusion Creep
 Grain boundary sliding

Different mechanisms  different n, Qc.

Grain boundary diffusion Dislocation glide and climb

 Mechanisms of Creep

Dislocation glide- Involves dislocations moving along

slip planes and overcoming barriers by thermal
activation. This mechanism occurs at high stress
levels.

Dislocation creep- Involves the movement of

dislocations which overcome barriers by thermally
assisted mechanisms involving the diffusion of
vacancies or interstitials.
 Mechanisms of Creep

Diffusion creep- Involves the flow of vacancies and

interstitials through a crystal under the influence of
applied stress. This mechanism occurs at high
temperatures and low stress levels.

Grain boundary sliding- Involves the sliding of grains

past each other.