Stress And Strain

Stress
Stress is defined as "force per area".
Direct Stress or Normal Stress
Stress normal to the plane is usually denoted "normal
stress" and can be expressed as
σ = Fn / A         (1)
where
σ = normal stress ((Pa) N/m2, psi)
Fn = normal component force (N, lbf)
A = area (m2, in2)
Shear Stress
Stress parallel to the plane is usually denoted "shear
stress" and can be expressed as
τ = Fp / A         (2)
where
τ = shear stress ((Pa) N/m2, psi)
Fp = parallel component force (N, lbf)
A = area (m2, in2)
Strain
Strain is defined as "deformation of a solid due to stress"
and can be expressed as
ε = dl / lo = σ / E         (3)
where
dl = change of length (m, in)
lo = initial length (m, in)
ε = unitless measure of engineering strain
E = Young's modulus (Modulus of Elasticity) (Pa, psi)
Hooke's Law -  Modulus of Elasticity (Young's
Modulus or Tensile Modulus)
Most metals have deformations that are proportional with
the imposed loads over a range of loads. Stress is
proportional to load and strain is proportional to
deformation expressed by the Hooke's law like
E = stress / strain = (Fn / A) / (dl / lo)         (4)
where
E = Young's modulus (N/m2) (lb/in2, psi)
Modulus of Elasticity or Young's Modulus are commonly
used for metals and metal alloys and expressed in terms
106 lbf/in2, N/m2 or Pa. Tensile modulus are often used for
plastics and expressed in terms 105 lbf/in2 or  GPa

Please note: The above article is taken from

www.engineeringtoolbox.com.

Creep Behavior of Materials

When a metal or alloy is under a constant load or
stress, it may undergo progressive plastic deformation
over a period of time, even though applied stress is
less than the yield strength at that temperaure. This
time dependent strain is called creep (above definition
is taken from AMIE study material) More information is
taken from Wikipdeia and shown below.

In materials science, creep is the tendency of a solid

material to slowly move or deform permanently under
the influence of stresses. It occurs as a result of long
term exposure to high levels of stress that are below
the yield strength of the material. Creep is more severe
in materials that are subjected to heat for long
periods, and near melting point. Creep always
increases with temperature.
The rate of this deformation is a function of the
material properties, exposure time, exposure
temperature and the applied structural load.
Depending on the magnitude of the applied stress and
its duration, the deformation may become so large
that a component can no longer perform its function
— for example creep of a turbine blade will cause the
blade to contact the casing, resulting in the failure of
the blade. Creep is usually of concern to engineers
and metallurgists when evaluating components that
operate under high stresses or high temperatures.
Creep is a deformation mechanism that may or may
not constitute a failure mode. Moderate creep in
concrete is sometimes welcomed because it relieves
tensile stresses that might otherwise lead to cracking.
Stages of Creep
In the initial stage, or primary creep, the strain rate is
relatively high, but slows with increasing strain. This
is due to work hardening. The strain rate eventually
reaches a minimum and becomes near constant. This
is due to the balance between work hardening and
annealing (thermal softening). This stage is known as
secondary or steady-state creep. This stage is the
most understood. The characterized "creep strain
rate" typically refers to the rate in this secondary
stage. Stress dependence of this rate depends on the
creep mechanism. In tertiary creep, the strain rate
exponentially increases with strain because of
necking phenomena.
GENERAL CREEP EQUATION

where is the creep strain, C is a constant dependent

on the material and the particular creep mechanism,
mb are exponents dependent on the creep
mechanism, Q is the activation energy of the creep
mechanism, σ is the applied stress, d is the grain size
of the material, k is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the
absolute temperature. and

Creep in materials must be taken into consideration

before designing machine components which work in
high temperature / high stress environments. Other
components in which creep is important design
consideration include Bulb filaments, Crown Glass,
Metal Paper clips, ...

Notes on Various Fractures

Hello Everyone,
Have a blessed day. Hoping your preparation is going
cool unlike mine. I just thought I will share brief notes
on various fractures to give a brief overview.
Brittle Fracture
     A fracture which takes place by rapid propagation
of crack with a negligible deformation. In amorphous
materials, the fracture is completely brittle. In
crystalline materials, it occurs after small deformation.
Ductile Fracture:
     A fracture which takes place by a slow propagation
of crack with appreciable plastic deformation. This
type of fracture comes into play in materials which
don't work harden much. 
Creep Fracture
     A fracture which takes place due to excessive
creeping of materials, under steady load. Creep is
exhibited in iron, nickel, copper and alloys at higher
temperature.  Creep resistance may be increased by
addition of certain elements such as cobalt, nickel ,
manganese, tungsten, ...
Fatigue Fracture:
    A fracture that occurs when a material is subjected
to cyclic loading. If the loads are above a certain
threshold, microscopic cracks will begin to form at the
surface. Eventually a crack will reach a critical size,
and the structure will suddenly fracture.

Brittle Fracture
In brittle fracture, no apparent plastic deformation
takes place before fracture. In brittle crystalline
materials, fracture can occur by cleavage as the result
of tensile stress acting normal to crystallographic
planes with low bonding (cleavage planes). In
amorphous solids, by contrast, the lack of a
crystalline structure results in a conchoidal fracture,
with cracks proceeding normal to the applied tension.
The theoretical strength of a crystalline material is
(roughly)

where: -
E is the Young's modulus of the material,
γ is the surface energy, and
ro is the equilibrium distance between atomic
centers.
On the other hand, a crack introduces a stress
concentration modeled by

(For sharp
cracks)
where: -
σapplied is the loading stress,
a is half the length of the crack, and
ρ is the radius of curvature at the crack tip.
Putting these two equations together, we get

Looking closely, we can see that sharp cracks (small

ρ) and large defects (large a) both lower the fracture
strength of the material.
Recently, scientists have discovered supersonic
fracture, the phenomenon of crack motion faster than
the speed of sound in a material. This phenomenon
was recently also verified by experiment of fracture in
rubber-like materials.
The above info is taken from www.ubstech.com.
Ductile Fracture
In ductile fracture, extensive plastic deformation takes
place before fracture. The terms rupture or ductile
rupture describe the ultimate failure of tough ductile
materials loaded in tension. Rather than cracking, the
material "pulls apart," generally leaving a rough
surface. In this case there is slow propagation and an
absorption of a large amount energy before fracture.
 Many ductile metals, especially
materials with high purity, can sustain very large
deformation of 50–100% or more strain before fracture
under favorable loading condition and environmental
condition. The strain at which the fracture happens is
controlled by the purity of the materials. At room
temperature, pure iron can undergo deformation up to
100% strain before breaking, while cast iron or high-
carbon steels can barely sustain 3% of strain.
Because ductile rupture involves a high degree of
plastic deformation, the fracture behavior of a
propagating crack as modeled above changes
fundamentally. Some of the energy from stress
concentrations at the crack tips is dissipated by
plastic deformation before the crack actually
propagates.
The basic steps are: void formation, void coalescence
(also known as crack formation), crack propagation,
and failure, often resulting in a cup-and-cone shaped
failure surface.
The steps are clearly shown in the figure given here.
The above info is taken from http://www.websters-
online-dictionary.org/. Please do refer to them for
further info.
Brittle Fracture VS Ductile Fracture
Brittle Fracture:
o Caused due to high impact blows on the
material
o Plastic deformation is zero or very very less
o Once crack is formed,  the crack is unstable
in nature and propagates very rapidly.
o Crack propagates nearly perpendicular to the
direction of the applied stress
o Crack often propagates by cleavage -
breaking of atomic bonds along specific
crystallographic planes (cleavage planes).
Ductile Fracture:
o Caused due to tensile forces acting on the
material
o Necking can be observed i.e. excessive
plastic deformation takes place
o Crack is stable i.e. once crack is formed, it
resists propagation unless further stress is
applied
o Micro-voids are formed fist, then by shear
forces the crack propagates and results in
fracture
Good material about Fractures is available here & here
Griffith's Theroy: Mechanism of Brittle Fracture

      It has been observed that the stress required for a

material, at which it fractures, is only a small fraction of
cohesive strength. This discrepancy led Griffith to suggest
that the low observed strengths were due to presence of
micro-cracks, which act as the points of stress
concentration. 
       According to the Griffith's criterion. the crack will
propagate under the effect of a constant applied stress if
an incremental increase in length produces no change in
total energy of the systems. Mathematically the above
criterion is explained as 

A proper explanation of the above theory is given as below

by Wikipedia:
Fracture mechanics was developed during World War I by
English aeronautical engineer, A. A. Griffith, to explain the
failure of brittle materials. Griffith's work was motivated by
two contradictory facts:
 The stress needed to fracture bulk glass is around
100 MPa (15,000 psi).
 The theoretical stress needed for breaking atomic
bonds is approximately 10,000 MPa (1,500,000 psi).
        A theory was needed to reconcile these conflicting
observations. Also, experiments on glass fibers that
Griffith himself conducted suggested that the fracture
stress increases as the fiber diameter decreases. Hence
the uniaxial tensile strength, which had been used
extensively to predict material failure before Griffith, could
not be a specimen-independent material property. Griffith
suggested that the low fracture strength observed in
experiments, as well as the size-dependence of strength,
was due to the presence of microscopic flaws in the bulk
material.
      To verify the flaw hypothesis, Griffith introduced an
artificial flaw in his experimental specimens. The artificial
flaw was in the form of a surface crack which was much
larger than other flaws in a specimen. The experiments
showed that the product of the square root of the flaw
length (a) and the stress at fracture (σf) was nearly
constant, which is expressed by the equation:

An explanation of this relation in terms of linear elasticity

theory is problematic. Linear elasticity theory predicts that
stress (and hence the strain) at the tip of a sharp flaw in a
linear elastic material is infinite. To avoid that problem,
Griffith developed a thermodynamic approach to explain
the relation that he observed.
      The growth of a crack requires the creation of two new
surfaces and hence an increase in the surface energy.
Griffith found an expression for the constant C in terms of
the surface energy of the crack by solving the elasticity
problem of a finite crack in an elastic plate. Briefly, the
approach was:
 Compute the potential energy stored in a perfect
specimen under an uni-axial tensile load.
 Fix the boundary so that the applied load does no
work and then introduce a crack into the specimen.
 The crack relaxes the stress and hence reduces the
elastic energy near the crack faces. On the other
hand, the crack increases the total surface energy of
the specimen.
 Compute the change in the free energy (surface
energy − elastic energy) as a function of the crack
length. Failure occurs when the free energy attains a
peak value at a critical crack length, beyond which the
free energy decreases by increasing the crack length,
i.e. by causing fracture. Using this procedure, Griffith
found that

where E is the Young's modulus of the material and γ is

the surface energy density of the material. Assuming Eγ =
1 J/m2 gives excellent agreement of Griffith's predicted
fracture stress with experimental results for glass. =
62 GPa

Stress Strain Curve, Mild Steel

Hello Everyone,

Those who are familiar with concept of Stress - Strain

curve, please do continue with this post to understand
about upper yeild strenght and lower yield strenght for
mild steel. Those who are not familiar please take time
to go through this article
From the image given here taken from etomica.org it
is clear that materials like mild steel have two yield
strenghs. The first called upper yield strenght and the
second called lower yield strength.

Once the stress reaches the upper yield strength, the

internal relaxation comes into play and the strain can
be observed even at lower amount of stress. The stain
is bound to osciallte between both the limits. The
lower yield strength is about half the tensile strength
of the material.  The explaination can be summarized
as follows
   "At elastic limit, sudden yield happens & fall-off of
load takes place. Hence material continues to defrom
at lower load until material hardening sets in"
Answers.com says the reason for such behavior is
Low carbon steels suffer from yield-point runout
where the material has two yield points. The first yield
point (or upper yield point) is higher than the second and
the yield drops dramatically after the upper yield point. If a
low carbon steel is only stressed to some point between
the upper and lower yield point then the surface may
develop Lüder bands.
True Stress Vs Engg. Stress
Engineering stress assumes that the area a force is acting upon remains constant, true stress takes into
account the variation in the cross sectional area as a result of the stress induced deformation (strain) of a
material.

For example a steel bar in tension once it's yield point or stress is reached will start to "neck". Necking is
the localised concentration of strain in a small region of the material, causing a reduction in cross
sectional area at this point.

To calculate the engineering stress in the above case, the applied load is divided by the original cross
sectional area, however the true stress would be equal to the load divided by the new deformed cross
sectional area. Therefore true stress is likely to be significantly higher than engineering stress. Note that
while the material is deforming elastically before thwe yield point is reached there will be some difference
between true and enginnering stress (as the material is changing shape) but it will be much smaller than
the difference after the yield point is reached.

A rock core in a uniaxial compression test will typically expand radially under loading. Therefore in this
case, the engineering stress (based on the original diameter) will be larger than the true stress within the
material.

Tensile Toughness
Toughness:
    Energy observed by material prior to fracturing is
called toughness. It depends on both strength and
ductility of the material in question. A pic from
www.etomica.org is given below to show the
relationship the three entities in question viz tensile
toughness, ductility and strength.
  

From the figure, it can be concluded that tensile

toughness is the are under the stress - strain curve. It
is high if a material has high amount of strength and
ductility. Materials with low ductility of low strength
don't posses ample tensile toughness. 
The word toughness is usually used for tensile
toughness.  In tesile toughness, the strain rate is
relatively slow. There is another type of toughness
called as impact toughness. Please do read about it
here to understand the difference.
This post is made from the study material provided by
IEI and from the www.etomica.org
Tensile Test, Part One
Tensile Test:
    Tensile test is a simple test, wherein the specimen
in question is subjected to uni-axial load (pulled apart)
till failure. This test is used to plot the stress - strain
curve there by coming to conclusion about
 Yield point
 Elasticity limit
  Point of  Proportionality
 and lot more factors including, true breaking
stress, fracture point load, ...

   A sample of specimen is taken, and is pulled apart in

apparatus known as Universal testing machine. The
length and cross section area of sample are decided
as per our needs. Nomenclature of the specimen is
shown in figure.

    Once the equipment is set up, the load on the

specimen is gradually increased noting down the
stress and strain levels till the point of rupture (i.e.
fracture). A typical curve for ductile materials is
shown here:

In figure,
the points to be noted include: 
  Proportionality zone .. i.e the zone where HOOK's
law is valid
 The region where elasticity is exhibited
 The zone where material yields and plastic
deformation happens
 The ultimate tensile strength & the uniform
elongation of specimen till then
 The fracture point and the local necking which
happens before fracture

PS:  Some info has been taken from Wikipedia and

from http://invsee.asu.edu/.
Tensile Test, Part Two
Please read the previous part of this article here

The typical stress strain curve for ductile material is

given here: 

The points to note from this picture are:

Elastic Limit
  The material is elastic till this point in the curve. The
stress strain ratio is constant when the curve is linear
within this zone. The material deforms in this zone but
regains original shape and size once the load is
removed. The working stress is always much below
the Elastic Limit

Yield Point:
   Plastic deformation happens at this point. The
deformation is permanent in nature and the original
shape and size are not restored once the load is
removed.
Creep:
   A small amount of creep may come into play due to
sudden elongation of material. This effect of creep is
not shown in this picture. Creep usually appears for
negligible time and is not taken into account.

Ultimate Strength:
    Stress is necessary to obtain stain from the yield
point onwards. Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), is the
maximum stress that a material can withstand while
being stretched or pulled before necking, which is
when the specimen's cross-section starts to
significantly contract. This is the highest point in the
curve

Fracture Point:
    Once the Ultimate stress is crossed, the material
starts necking (i.e. non-uniform reduction in area of
cross section in specimen). The material then breaks
apart.
Elasticity and Plasticity
Elasticity:
       External loads tend to deform materials from their
original shape and size. Elasticity is the ability of a
material to return to its original shape and size after
removing the load applied. Elastic deformation
(change of shape or size) lasts only as long as a
deforming force is applied to the object, and
disappears once the force is removed.This is so
because the atoms in the metal change their position
due to external stress but can't take new positions
because the change of position is too small (or in
acceptable range)

     Steels and other such materials are elastic over

good range.

Plasticity:
     External loads tend to deform materials from their
original shape and size. Plasticity is the ability of a
material to retain the deformation even after external
load is removed.In plastic deformation, the atoms in
the material due to external force are displaced and
take up new positions. They cannot come back to their
natural positions once force is removed.
     This is very desirable property in machine tools.
Lead has good plasticity at room temperature. Cast
Iron has no plasticity even at very high temperature.    

PS: Some of the info here is taken from

science.jrank.org
What are Mechanical Properties of Materials??
Hello Everyone,
From what I studied, I can come to conclusion that:
External loads are always applied on Materials during
their service. The properties which describe the re-
action of a material to those external loads are all
classified as Mechanical Properties of materials.

It is important to ascertain the mechanical properties

of material with standard laboratory tests in which the
loads on the materials in real environment  are
applied. This lets us determine behavior of materials
and ensure we choose the right materials

 The important Mechanical Properties include:

 Ductility
 Hardness
 Elasticity and Plasticity
 Poission's ratio
 Creep
 Stress and Strain W.R.T Tensile stress, Shear
Stress
 Poisson's Ratio
 Poisson's ratio (ν), is the ratio, when a sample
object is stretched, of the contraction or
transverse strain (perpendicular to the applied
load), to the extension or axial strain (in the
direction of the applied load).


 When a material is compressed in one direction, it
usually tends to expand in the other two
directions perpendicular to the direction of
compression. This phenomenon is called the
Poisson effect. Poisson's ratio ν (nu) is a measure
of the Poisson effect




 In the above picture, the stress is acting in X axis,
but change in object is evident in Y and Z axes
also. Poisson's effect is all about this change and
Poisson's ratio is a measure of this effect and is
given by 

 

 For ideal material, the ratio is 0.5. But in general it
ranges from 0.25 to 0.40
 Relation between E, G and Poisson's Ratio
 The definite relationship between Young's
modulus, Shear modulus & Poissons ratio  is
asked many a times in our old question papers
though for two marks only.


 So I thought I will put up the answer here:

 Let young's modulus = E, Shear modulus = G,
Bulk Modulus = K and
 poisson's ratio = v
 E = 3K(1-2v)
 E = 2G(1+v)

Mechanical Properties of Materials

Hello Everyone,
  Well I am a little tensed. Exam dates have been
released. My preparation till now amounts to almost
nothing and the pressure is huge. So started serious
study from today morning itself.

  So stated with chapter called as Mechanical

Properties of Materials. So the important topics to be
studied here include:
 Tensile strength
 Poission's Ratio
 Yield strength
 Elastic and viscoelastic properties
 Creep, stress relaxation and impact.
 Fracture behaviour.
 Ductile fracture
 Griffith theory
 effect of heat treatment and temperature on
properties of metals.

 Fatigue Fracture
         Fatigue fracture is a fracture that occurs
when a material is subjected to cyclic loading and
unloading. If the loads are above a certain
threshold, microscopic cracks will begin to form
at the surface. Eventually a crack will reach a
critical size, and the structure will suddenly
fracture.

         Rotating shafts, connecting rods, aircraft
wings and leaf springs are some examples of
structural and machine components that are
subjected to millions of cycles of alternating
stresses during service. Majority of fractures in
such components is due to fatigue.

          Fatigue fracture occurs by crack
propagation. The crack usually initiates at the
surface of the specimen and propagates slowly at
first into the interiors. At some critical stage,
crack propagation becomes rapid culminating in
fracture.
 

         The fatigue behavior can be

understood from results of fatigue test, which are
presented in from of S-N curves.  Samples of
material are subjected to alternating stresses of
different levels. The number of cycles of stress
reversals N required to cause fracture is plotted
against the applied stress level S. Some materials
such as mild steel show a clearly defined fatigue
limit. If the applied stress is below the fatigue
limit, (aka Endurance Limit) the material will
withstand any number of stress reversals. If
materials don't show clearly defined limit, the
fatigue limit is defined as stress that would cause
failure after a specified number of stress
reversals.

The above info is taken from Material Science and

Engineering by Raghavan and the picture shown
here is taken from http://www.fea-
optimization.com/. Please do refer to them for
more info. 

Charpy and Izod Tests

I was telling about Impact hardness earlier on this
blog. The Charpy and Izod tests are useful in
determining the Impact hardness of the materials.

The materials with high impact hardness are ductile in

nature and the materials with low impact hardness are
brittle in nature.

Charpy Test:

The specimen used is 55mmx10mmx10mm in size

with a V notch (making 45 degrees) as shown in
figure. The specimen is held horizontally and a
hammer repeatedly strikes the specimen till the
specimen fails
A hammer attached to pendulum strikes the specimen
when released from a height. The pendulum swings
back after striking the specimen. The angle from
which the pendulum is released and the angle to
which the pendulum raises back after breaking the
specimen are noted down and used in calculation of
Impact hardness.
A picture of apparatus used is shown in the figure.
The formula for calculating the energy required for
breaking the specimen is given by formula
     Enegry = WR(cosα  - cosβ)
with W => weight of pendulum and hammer
        R => distance between center of gravity of
pendulum to its striking edge
         α  => Initial angle from which pendulum is
released
          β => The angle to which the pendulum rose after
breaking the specimen

Izod Test:
Here the specimen is of size 75mmX10mmX10mm with
a V notch (making 45 degrees). The specimen is held
vertically and the test is performed. The entire test is
similar to Charpy Test.

The pictures in the post are taken from

Vhttp://www.soawe.com/time/?tag=What-is-a-charpy-
test

Impact hardness
  We have been speaking about tensile toughness.
Tensile toughness can be defined as the resistance
offered by material to plastic deformation i.e. the
ability to resit indentation and penetration or abrasion.
Here, the load is applied slowly and the strain rate is
quite slow too.

But in real life materials are also subjected to sudden

blows. The resistance offered by materials to such
blows (or impacts) can be called as impact toughness.

Hard, strong materials with good tensile toughness

also falter under sudden impacts and exhibit brittle
nature and undergo brittle fracture. The brittleness of
materials and the reliability of materials under impacts
can be studied using Charpy test and Izod test.
The tests are described in the further sections of this
blog. Please do take time to go through the same.
Hardness tests of materials
Hardness of a material refers to the resitance the
material offers to permanent plastic deformation when
an external force is applied. Wikipedia defines it as
the measure of how resistant solid matter is to
various kinds of permanent shape change when a
force is applied. 
In view of syllabus of material science, Impact
hardness tests are important and necessary. Impact
hardness refers to resitance offered by material when
the force applied is impact in nature i.e. for short
period with high magnitude. 

The four important tests covered in the syllabus are

 Rockwell Hardness test 
 Knoop Hardness test
  Vickets hardness test
 Brinell's Hardness test

The hardness tests are performed since 

 They are easy, simple 
 The set up is in-expensive
 The test doesn't damage the entire specimen.
Usually small specimen is sufficient
 Other physical properties can be told from this
tests
 Resilience of Material
 Hello Everyone,

    Every wondered why objects like spring give
back energy when they uncoil?? Well one of the
reasons fro this behavior is resilience of material
with which spring is manufactured. 

    Resilience of material is the ability of it to
absorb energy when deformed elastically due to
applied stress and return the energy back when
unloaded. 



    Modulus of Resilience is the measure of this

property and as per the wikipedia,  Modulus of
Resilience can be calculated using the following

formula: , where σy is yield stress, E

is Young's modulus, and is strain.
 Determination of yield Strength
 Hello Everyone,


   In the previous articles, I told what is yield
strength is? Now how to determine it is always a
problem. Many a ductile materials get deformed
(elastic and plastic). But the boundaries of
deformation cannot be strictly defined due to hell
lot of reasons. 


    So the Americans devised a plan to find out the
yield strength. They define the same as the stress
 at which a predetermined amount of permanent
deformation occurs. To find yield strength, the
predetermined amount of permanent strain is set
along the strain axis of the graph, to the right of the
origin (zero). It is indicated in Figure as Point (D).




  
 A straight line is drawn through Point (D) at the same
slope as the initial portion of the stress-strain curve. The
point of intersection of the new line and the stress-strain
curve is projected to the stress axis. The stress value, in
pounds per square inch, is the yield strength. It is
indicated in Figure 5 as Point 3. This method of plotting
is done for the purpose of subtracting the elastic strain
from the total strain, leaving the predetermined
"permanent offset" as a remainder. When yield
strength is reported, the amount of offset used in the
determination should be stated. For example, "Yield
Strength (at 0.2% offset) = 51,200 psi."


  Notes for the above article is taken from
www.engineersedge.com.
 Rockwell Hardness Test
     The Rockwell test determines the hardness by
measuring the depth of penetration of an indenter
under a large load (60Kgf - 200Kgf) compared to
the penetration made by a preload (10Kgf). There
are different scales, which are denoted by a single
letter, that use different loads or indenters. The
result, which is a dimensionless number, is noted
by HRX where X is the scale letter.

       The determination of the Rockwell hardness of
a material involves the application of a minor load
followed by a major load, and then noting the
depth of penetration, vis a vis, hardness value
directly from a dial, in which a harder material
gives a higher number. The chief advantage of
Rockwell hardness is its ability to display
hardness values directly, thus obviating tedious
calculations involved in other hardness
measurement techniques. 
This method is widely used in Industry as the
reading is available easily & quickly. 
 Brinell Hardness Test
        The Brinell hardness test method consists of
indenting the test material with a 10 mm diameter
hardened steel or carbide ball subjected to a load
of 3000 kg. 

      The objective of harness test is define the
hardness number which represents an arbitrary
quantity used to provide a relative idea of material
properties. The hardness number derived in this
test is called Brinell harness number and is
designated as BHN

       For softer materials the load can be reduced to
1500 kg or 500 kg to avoid excessive indentation.
The full load is normally applied for 10 to 15
seconds in the case of iron and steel and for at
least 30 seconds in the case of other metals. The
diameter of the indentation left in the test material
is measured with a low powered microscope. 

       The Brinell harness number is calculated by
dividing the load applied by the surface area of
the indentation. The formula is shown in the
picture shown below.




Where F = Force applied in kgF
          D = diameter of indenter
       
      This method is not used in industry since it is
quite slow, deforms the specimen excessively and
requires setup to calculate the depth of the
indentaion..
    The above information has been taken from
www.gordonengland.co.uk. Please do refer to
them for more info.
 Knoop Hardness Test
       The Knoop hardness test  is a microhardness
test - a test for mechanical hardness used
particularly for very brittle materials or thin
sheets, where only a small indentation may be
made for testing purposes

     A pyramidal diamond point is pressed into the
polished surface of the test material with a known
force, for a specified dwell time, and the resulting
indentation is measured using a microscope. The
geometry of this indenter is an extended pyramid
with the length to width ratio being 7:1 and
respective face angles are 172 degrees for the
long edge and 130 degrees for the short edge. The
depth of the indentation can be approximated as
1/30 of the long dimension. 


 The Knoop hardness HK or KHN is then given by
the formula:


 where:
 L = length of indentation along its long axis
 Cp = correction factor related to the shape of the
indenter, ideally 0.070279
 P = load

         The advantages of the test are that only a
very small sample of material is required, and that
it is valid for a wide range of test forces. The main
disadvantages are the difficulty of using a
 microscope to measure the indentation (with an
accuracy of 0.5 micrometre), and the time needed
to prepare the sample and apply the indenter.

Status Chapter 02, Defects in solids

Well Hello Everyone,
Hope your preparation for AMIE is going on at good
pace. I studied a little about Crystal Defects Earlier
and am posting notes here. The articles I posted here
related to this chapter include:

 Question about Degrees of Freedom

 Cool PPT on Crystal Defects
 No. Of Atoms in Zinc Unit Cell
 Old Questions. Material Science. Chap. 02.
 Atomic Packing Factor
 Diffusion In Solids
 Line defects and Surface defects
 Point Defects in Crystal
 Status Chap 02
 Simple, Body Centered & Face Centered Cubic
System..
 Crystal Systems. Bravias Lattices.
 Miller Index
 Prerequisites for understanding defects in
crysta...
 Chap. 02. Defects in Crystals.
Chap. 02. Defects in Crystals.
   Horrible chapter as per me. Yeah, you read it well, Its
horrible I say. I have read the syllabus @ study
material provided. It speaks of all types of defects
including point defects, line defects, surface defects
and volume defects. Also speaks of lot of other stuff
like further classifications in the defects and such.
    I am of opinion that one should first read the
internals of crystal and crystal structures, bravias
crystals, Atomic Packing Factor, Space lattice stuff
and such. APF is important and seems to have
appeared in the exams a lot of times. I think the book
Material Science by RS Khurmi & RS Sedha is really
cool for this purpose. But geez its such a pain to
study the same. Hard stuff regarding Simple lattice,
Body Centered Lattice , FCC, .. volumes, Avagordo's
numbers volumes and masses of atoms and all such
stuff.

     Added to that I still couldn't start the actual topic of

defects still.Should see but its absorbing to study the
same. I will keep you posted about my developments. 
Point Defects in Crystals
One more hard day of studying. So I was going
through point defects in crystals. Before reading
about point defects please understand what crystals
are and why you need to study their internal
structures and how defects effect the structure
sensitive properties of the material
This stuff is really interesting in itself. You gotta study
a lot from vacancy, interstitial defects, constitutional
impurity, Schotty defect, Frenkel defect and all such. 

Also study what enthalpy of formation is? How to

calculate the same? The effects of defects on the
bonds between atoms, on the stress and strain and
elasticity ....

The material science & Engineer by Raghavan & 

Material Science by RS Khurmi & RS Sedha are good
books for the same. I am following the later
The basics of point defects in crystals can be
summarzied as follows:
 Vacancy – missing atom at a certain crystal lattice
position; 
 Interstitial impurity atom – extra impurity atom in
an interstitial position
 Self-interstitial atom – extra atom in an interstitial
position; 
 Substitution impurity atom – impurity atom,
substituting an atom in crystal lattice; 
  Frenkel defect – extra self-interstitial atom,
responsible for the vacancy nearby.
The above summary is taken from
www.substech.com. Please refer to them for further
info. 

A lot more stuff has to be studied regarding effects of

defects in the crystal, the calculation of equilibrium
concentration of vacancies, drawing miller indices for
given plane and for given crystal direction and all
such.... Geez will this ever end???
Prerequisites for understanding defects in crystals
    Hello EveryOne, So about crystal defects, I am not
sure if I can complete the chapter by this weekend or
not. I had to go through a lot of old question papers to
clearly understand what all must be studied to
complete the portion of this chapter. All I can tell you
is, the notes from study material is not sufficient at
all. 
    The prerequisites  for studying the material in the
study material are as follows as per me:
1. What are crystalline structures? What is lattice?
What is unit cell?
2. Study about the 7 crystal systems. Study about
the 14 Bravias lattices
3. Understand the concept of Miller indices. Find
miller indice for a given plane. Sketch a plane
when miller indices are given.
4. Understand about crystal directions. Find crystal
directions when miller indices are given.
5. Find out the relation between radius of atom and
parameter of lattice in a Bravias lattice. Find out
the no. of atoms in a given lattice. Find out the no.
of atoms in sq. mm. of cube
6. Find out Atomic Packing Factor. Know how to
calculate the density of cube using Avagordo's
Number.

    Yeah, I must say I made some progress in this

chapter anyway. I know a little about everything I
listed above and practiced some problems on the
same.

     A note about questions from these topics in old

papers. The questions are given here. Do try to solve
them.
1. Calculate volume of FCC unit cell in terms of
atomic radius. (W-05)
 2. Show that Atomic Packing Factor of FCC unit cell
is greater than the Atomic Packing Factor of BCC
unit cell. (W-05)
3. Calculate the Atomic Packing Factor of a FCC unit
cell. (W-06)
4. If lattice parameter of alpha iron is 286 pm, find
out the atomic radius (W-06).
    There is a lot more to study including types of
defects and the effects of these defects on the
structure intensive properties of crystalline
materials .... Everything happens at a pace. All we can
do is, improve the pace. Thats what I intend to do this
time.
Miller Index
Miller indices are a notation system in crystallography
for planes and directions in crystal (Bravais) lattices.
In particular, a family of lattice planes is determined
by three integers ℓ, m, and n, the Miller indices. They
are written (hkl), and each index denotes a plane
orthogonal to a direction (h, k, l) in the basis of the
reciprocal lattice vectors. By convention, negative
integers are written with a bar, as in 3 for −3. The
integers are usually written in lowest terms, i.e. their
greatest common divisor should be 1. Miller index 100
represents a plane orthogonal to direction ℓ; index 010
represents a plane orthogonal to direction m, and
index 001 represents a plane orthogonal to n.
There are also several related notations
  the notation {ℓmn} denotes the set of all planes
that are equivalent to (ℓmn) by the symmetry of
the lattice.
In the context of crystal directions (not planes), the
corresponding notations are:
 [ℓmn], with square instead of round brackets,
denotes a direction in the basis of the direct
lattice vectors instead of the reciprocal lattice;
and
 similarly, the notation 〈hkl 〉 denotes the set of
all directions that are equivalent to [ℓmn] by
symmetry.
Miller indices were introduced in 1839 by the British
mineralogist William Hallowes Miller. The method was
also historically known as the Millerian system, and
the indices as Millerian, although this is now rare.
The precise meaning of this notation depends upon a
choice of lattice vectors for the crystal, as described
below. Usually, three primitive lattice vectors are
used. However, for cubic crystal systems, the cubic
lattice vectors are used even when they are not
primitive (e.g., as in body-centered and face-centered
crystals).
The above information is taken from Wikipedia. Please
refer to Wikipedia for better information.
Simple, Body Centered & Face Centered Cubic Systems
The three Bravais lattices which form cubic crystal
systems are

Simple cubic Body-centered Face-centered

(P) cubic (I) cubic (F)
The simple cubic system (P) consists of one lattice
point on each corner of the cube. Each atom at the
lattice points is then shared equally between eight
adjacent cubes, and the unit cell therefore contains in
total one atom (1⁄8 × 8).
The body-centered cubic system (I) has one lattice
point in the center of the unit cell in addition to the
eight corner points. It has a net total of 2 lattice points
per unit cell (1⁄8 × 8 + 1).
The face-centered cubic system (F) has lattice points
on the faces of the cube, that each gives exactly one
half contribution, in addition to the corner lattice
points, giving a total of 4 atoms per unit cell (1⁄8 × 8
from the corners plus 1⁄2× 6 from the faces).
Attempting to create a C-centered cubic crystal
system (i.e., putting an extra lattice point in the center
of each horizontal face) would result in a simple
tetragonal Bravais lattice.
Line defects and Surface defects
    Yeah, I was reading about these topics only from
last Saturday. Please head to my advice, this is the
wrong way of spending your weekend. So basically
there is a lot to study, but everything is quite easy to
understand. Video tutorials can be of great help in this
issue, but alas, I couldn't surf for the same till now. I
shall update the same here at the earliest.

What all needs to be covered:

1. What are line defects, what are dislocations?
( both are same basically )
2. Types of line defects viz screw dislocation & edge
dislocation.
3. How to find out the burgers vector for a given
defect. What is burgers circuit, how to find out the
direction of burgers vector. What is Burgers
Vector?
4. What are various types of surface defects? 
 5. Study about grain boundary and interface, tilt
boundary, twinning, stacking faults & such.

Note:
 Twinning is important concept as the same is
asked many many times in the old question
papers.
 For simple definitions of defects and
classification please refer to material science by
RS Khurmi & RS Sedha 
 For brief and clear cut explanation please refer to
the  study material provided by AMIE

Resources:
 A good pdf which helps to visualize the
dislocations is here
 A good image to help visualize point defects is
here
 Another point defect explanation here
Diffusion In Solids
I was studying about diffusion in solids. The simplest
definition of diffusion is "movement of atoms in solids
under thermal energy and a gradient" is called
diffusion. Where the gradient can be concentration or
Electric / Magnetic field ...

This is relatively simple topic and can be easily

understood. But the topic is a little important as
questions regarding time taken for carburization are
repeatedly asked in the question papers.

The important topics to study include:

 Diffusion mechanisms (vacency, interstitial ..)
 Rate of diffusion in steady state and non steady
state (Ficks first law and second law)
 Kirkendall effect

Perfect resource for this topic is study material by IEI.

But the book by Raghavan is also very very good. The
book is available here
Atomic Packing Factor
         In crystallography, atomic packing factor (APF)
or packing fraction is the fraction of volume in a
crystal structure that is occupied by atoms. It is
dimensionless and always less than unity. For
practical purposes, the APF of a crystal structure is
determined by assuming that atoms are rigid spheres.
The radius of the spheres is taken to be the maximal
value such that the atoms do not overlap. For one-
component crystals (those that contain only one type
of atom), the APF is represented mathematically by

where Natoms is the number of atoms in the unit cell,

Vatom is the volume of an atom, and Vunit cell is the
volume occupied by the unit cell. It can be proven
mathematically that for one-component structures, the
most dense arrangement of atoms has an APF of
about 0.74. In reality, this number can be higher due to
specific intermolecular factors. For multiple-
component structures, the APF can exceed 0.74.

WORKED OUT EXAMPLE

Body-centered cubic crystal structure

BCC structure
       The primitive unit cell for the body-centered cubic
(BCC) crystal structure contains nine atoms: one on
each corner of the cube and one atom in the center.
Because the volume of each corner atom is shared
between adjacent cells, each BCC cell contains two
atoms.
Each corner atom touches the center atom. A line that
is drawn from one corner of the cube through the
center and to the other corner passes through 4r,
where r is the radius of an atom. By geometry, the
length of the diagonal is a√3. Therefore, the length of
each side of the BCC structure can be related to the
radius of the atom by
     Knowing this and the formula for the volume of a
sphere((4 / 3)pi r3), it becomes possible to calculate
the APF as follows:

  The above information is taken from

Wikipedia. Please do refer to the same for further
info.
No. Of Atoms in Zinc Unit Cell
I have been going through the question papers again. I
found a rather interesting question viz "Calculate the
no. of atoms in zinc unit cell?"

First some basics about Calculation of Number of

Particles per Unit Cell of a Cubic Crystal System.
Keeping the following points in mind we can calculate
the number of atoms in a unit cell.
 An atom at the corner is shared by eight unit
cells. Hence an atom at the corner contributes 1/8
to the unit cell
 An atom at the face is a shared by two unit cells
Contribution of each atom on the face is 1/2 to the unit
cell.
 An atom within the body of the unit cell is shared
by no other unit cell
Contribution of each atom within the body is 1 to the
unit cell.
 An atom present on the edge is shared by four
unit cells
Contribution of each atom on the edge is 1/4 to the
unit cell.
By applying these rules, we can calculate the number
of atoms in the different cubic unit cells of
monoatomic substances.

(The above concepts are taken from tutorvista.com.

Please refer to them from more info)
Now I intend to answer this question in this post as I
find it little cool. Zinc is having HCP structure as per
Material Science and Engineering by Raghavan. A
cool image showing the HCP structure is here:
    It is clear from the image that 3 atoms are inside the
body of the HCP unit structure. So the count of atoms
is 3 as of now.  
    It is clear from the image that the hexagonal faces
have one atom each. But each such atom is shared by
two HCP units equally. Hence the count of atoms
comes to "4" here.
   Now, the atoms at the twelve points ( hexagonal
edges on top and bottom ) make another two atoms.
Hence count is 6 totally. 

    A simple explaination of the same given at

answers.com is given below. Please do refer to the
same.
   
    There are 6 atoms in the hcp unit cell. The hex
shape has six atoms at the points that are direct
translations of each other making 1 atom for the top
hex and one atom for the bottom hex. That's 2. The
atom in the center of the top and center of the bottom
are translations giving 1 more. That's 3. Then there are
3 atoms in the middle region of each cell bringing the
total to 6
Chapter 03, Phase Diagrams
Hello Everyone,

     After a week or so spent lethargically, I am back to

study. So I intend to study about "Phase diagrams". I
was going through the Syllabus the other day and felt
that this chapter is cool. What do we need to cover in
this chapter??? As per me the following are must,
please do let me know if I am missing something here
 Phases & micro-structure's basic concepts 
 Solubility and limitations
 Mono-component and binary systems
 Non-equilibrium system
 Phase diagram and. application in crystalline and
non-crystalline solids.
  Lever rule and applications
 Effects of phases on Mechanical properties 

    Hello Everyone again, After starting the real study

( i.e. the books and such ) the above given points are
not ample as per me. So I am updating a list of topics
that should be studied for clearing all questions which
may arise from this topic:
 Introduction to phases, phase diagrams & need
for studying the same
 Mono-component systems, Gibbs phase rule &
applications
 Binary phase diagrams, triple points, invariant
points
 Isomorphic systems, applications of phase
diagrams (lever rule)
 Non - equilibrium solidification of alloys,
problems related to cooling
 Alloy Systems (Binary Eutectoid, Hypo-Eutectoid
plain carbon steels, Hyper-Eutectiod plain carbon
steels )
 Non - crystalline solids and phases in them

 Basics of Phase diagrams

       Phase diagrams are one of the most important
sources of information concerning the behavior of
elements, compounds and solutions. They
provide us with the knowledge of phase
composition and phase stability as a function of
temperature (T), pressure (P) and composition (C).
Furthermore, they permit us to study and control
important processes such as phase separation,
solidification, sintering, purification, growth and
doping of single crystals for technological and
other applications. Although phase diagrams
provide information about systems at equilibrium,
they can also assist in predicting phase relations,
compositional changes and structures in systems
not at equilibrium.

      The phase rule, also known as the Gibbs phase
rule, relates the number of components and the
number of degrees of freedom in a system at
equilibrium by the formula
                                       F = C – P + 2
 where F equals the number of degrees of freedom
or the number of independent variables, C equals
 the number of components in a system in
equilibrium and P equals the number of phases.
The digit 2 stands for the two variables,
temperature and pressure.


     The number of degrees of freedom (F) of a
system is the number of variables that may be
changed independently without causing the
appearance of a new phase or disappearance of
an existing phase.

     Please note that the value of F cannot be less
than 0. So the maximum number of phases can be
found out using the Gibbs Formula with taking
thermodynamics into consideration.

     The point at which F = 0 , is called invariant
point. The point at which the three phases can co-
exist is called triple point. 
 Triple Points & Gibbs Rule
 Hello Everyone,

     I intend to write small note on triple point which
I came across while studying for Phase Diagrams
chapter of Material Science in section A of AMIE.

     In thermodynamics, the triple point of a
substance is the temperature and pressure at
which three phases (for example, gas, liquid, and
solid) of that substance coexist in thermodynamic
equilibrium. For example, the triple point of
 mercury occurs at a temperature of −38.8344 °C
and a pressure of 0.2 mPa.
 In addition to the triple point between solid, liquid,
and gas, there can be triple points involving more
than one solid phase, for substances with multiple
polymorphs. Helium-4 is a special case that
presents a triple point involving two different fluid
phases (see lambda point). In general, for a
system with p possible phases, there are

triple points.


         The triple point of water is used to define the
kelvin, the SI base unit of thermodynamic
temperature. The number given for the
temperature of the triple point of water is an exact
definition rather than a measured quantity. The
triple points of several substances are used to
define points in the ITS-90 international
temperature scale, ranging from the triple point of
hydrogen (13.8033 K) to the triple point of water
(273.16 K).
 Tie Line
 Tie Line:
 An imaginary horizontal line (isotherm) spanning
a two-phase region of an equilibrium phase
diagram, terminating at the nearest phase
boundaries on either side.

 
  Tie lines are important when using phase
diagrams to predict the constitution of two-phase
materials.
 Eutectic reaction
 Eutectic reaction:

 A three-phase reaction in which, upon cooling, a
liquid transforms to give two solid phases. 


 e.g:                                 L   + 

Eutectic Systems
       A eutectic system is a mixture of chemical
compounds or elements that has a single chemical
composition that solidifies at a lower temperature than
any other composition. This composition is known as
the eutectic composition and the temperature is
known as the eutectic temperature. On a phase
diagram the intersection of the eutectic temperature
and the eutectic composition gives the eutectic point.
Not all binary alloys have a eutectic point; for
example, in the silver-gold system the melt
temperature (liquidus) and freeze temperature
(solidus) both increase monotonically as the mix
changes from pure silver to pure gold.

The eutectic reaction is defined as follows:

        This type of reaction is an invariant reaction,

because it is in thermal equilibrium; another way to
define this is the Gibbs free energy equals zero.
Tangibly, this means the liquid and two solid solutions
all coexist at the same time and are in chemical
equilibrium. There is also a thermal arrest for the
duration of the reaction.
        The resulting solid macrostructure from a
eutectic reaction depends on a few factors. The most
important factor is how the two solid solutions
nucleate and grow. The most common structure is a
lamellar structure, but other possible structures
include rodlike, globular, and acicula