Materials Testing Guide
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JulyMaterials 2013 Testing Guide In this guide: • Do Your Materials Measure Up? - Testing Basics • Tensile Testing Tips and Trends • Effects of Specimen Geometry on Elongation • Measurement Errors July 2013 - Copyright 2013 ADMET, Inc. Norwood, MA. All Rights Reserved. Introduction As a product designer, production manager, or quality inspector you may be faced with Material Testing issues. We’ve brought together four brief papers to cover some basic issues worth recapping to optimize your procedures. We hope you find them useful and please check out our website for great blog articles, white papers, and videos at ADMET.com. Copyright 2013 ADMET, Inc. 51 Morgan Drive, Norwood, MA 02062 Contents • Do Your Materials Measure Up?..................................................................1 • Tensile Testing Basics, Tips, and Trends.....................................................5 • The Effects of Specimen Geometry on Elongation..................................10 • Measurement Errors in Materials Testing.................................................11 Copyright 2013 ADMET, Inc. 51 Morgan Drive, Norwood, MA 02062 Do Your Materials Measure Up? Richard Gedney President ADMET, Inc. Norwood, MA 02062 USA Materials testing is often the last step in the manufactur- ing process. Yet quality cannot be put in after the fact since it is the result of both the materials and the process. In forming materials, it’s helpful to understand their properties in order to better predict the manufacturing outcome. For stamping and forming operations and for many products it is also helpful to have a profile of the material in order to detect variations in materials from suppliers over time. This paper offers definitions for mechanical properties Figure 1 - Tensile specimen pulled to fracture. De- of materials that exhibit some Hookean (linear) behavior picts region where necking occurred. during loading. Metals and many plastics, polymers and composites exhibit Hookean behavior. This paper is intended as a tutorial or refresher for product design- Material properties that have a direct or indirect influence on ers and quality inspectors on the analysis of tensile test formability and product quality are Tensile Strength, Yield data. A glossary of important materials testing terms is Strength, Young’s Modulus, Ductility, Hardness, the Strain included (Sidebar). Hardening Exponent and the Plastic Strain Ratio. All of these parameters, except hardness, can be determined by Tensile testing has several elements cutting a test specimen from the blank and performing a The performance of a structure is frequently determined tensile test. by the amount of deformation that can be permitted. A deflection of a few thousandths of an inch in an optical grinding machine would produce scrap lenses, whereas a bridge truss or joist might deflect several inches. Tensile Total Elongation Strength, Yield Strength and Young’s Modulus of Elastic- Offset- D ity are measured properties that must be considered when Yield, B C-Yield designing a structure. EUL Prop-A Another important property is ductility, defined as the Limit Fracture X ability for plastic deformation in tension or shear. Duc- Tensile 2 tility controls the amount a material can be cold formed Strength Stress, S E which is the process used when forming automobile bodies or wire products. Two commonly used indices of ductility are total elongation and reduction of area. For 1 suppliers, the mechanical properties are an important measure of product quality, and often times buyers require certification of the values. O X Y Z The outcome of a forming process is dependent on both Strain, e material characteristics and process variables such as Figure 2 - Stress-Strain Curve. strain, strain rate and temperature. Stress and strain fields are so diverse during a forming process that one A tensile test is employed to generate a stress-strain curve test cannot be used to predict the formability of materials that provides a graphical description of the amount of in all situations. However, an understanding of material deflection under load for a given material. A typical stress- properties is important to determining the success of a strain curve is shown in Figure 2 and depicts several key forming process. measures of product quality. 1 Copyright 2013 ADMET, Inc. 51 Morgan Drive, Norwood, MA 02062 The Tensile Test - The stress-strain curve is generated Elongation at Fracture is the amount of uniaxial strain at by pulling a metal specimen in uniaxial tension to fail- fracture and is depicted as strain at point Z. It includes the ure. ASTM E8/E8M Standard Test Methods for Tension amount of both elastic and plastic deformation just prior Testing Metallic Materials governs the methods used for to the sudden decrease in force associated with fracture. the determination of Yield Strength, Ultimate Tensile Elongation at Fracture is generally measured with an ex- Strength, Percent Elongation at Break and Reduction tensometer that remains on the specimen through break. of Area. For materials that exhibit a high degree of elongation, such as plastics, crosshead travel may be substituted for Engineering stress (S) is obtained by dividing the force direct strain measurement with an extensometer. Percent (F) at any given time by the original cross sectional area Elongation at Break is commonly determined after the (Ao) of the specimen. test by fitting the fractured ends together and measuring the change in gage length, lo, between two gage marks S = F/AoEq. 1 punched or scribed into the specimen prior to testing. (The gage length used for measurement is reported with Engineering strain (e) is obtained by dividing the elon- the result.). gation of the gage length of the specimen (l) by the original gage length (lo). Elongation at Break(%) = ez = 100*(lz-lo)/lo Eq. 4 e = l/lo = (l - lo)/loEq. 2 Reduction of Area like Elongation at Break is another measure of ductility and is expressed in percent. Reduc- Figure 2 depicts a typical stress-strain curve. The shape tion of Area is calculated by measuring the cross sectional and magnitude of the curve is dependent on the type area at the fracture point. of metal being tested. In Figure 2, point A represents the proportional limit of a material. A material loaded Reduction of Area(%) = (Ao-Az)/AoEq. 5 in tension beyond point A when unloaded will exhibit permanent deformation. The proportional limit is often times difficult to calculate, therefore, two practical mea- surements, Offset Yield Strength and Yield by Extension Under Load (EUL) were developed to approximate the 180 proportional limit. The initial portion of the curve below heat treated, point A represents the elastic region and is approximated chrome-tungsten 160 alloy heat treated, nickel alloy by a straight line. It is commonly referred to as the linear elastic or Hookean region. The slope (E) of the curve in the elastic region is defined as Young’s Modulus of 140 Elasticity and is a measure of material stiffness. 120 heat treated, 0.62% carbon E = S / e = (S2-S1)/(e2-e1)Eq. 3 Point B represents the Offset Yield Strength and is found 100 by constructing a line X-B parallel to the curve in the 0.62% carbon elastic region (ie. slope of line X-B equal to Young’s 80 Modulus (E)). Line X-B is offset a strain amount O-X that is typically 0.2% of the gage length (example: offset ksi Stress, Tensile 60 O-X = 0.2% = 0.002 in/in; for a 2 in gage length = 0.004 0.32% carbon in). Point C represents the Yield Strength by Extension 40 Under Load (EUL) and is found by constructing a vertical 0.11% carbon line Y-C. Line Y-C is offset a strain amount O-Y that is typically 0.5% of gage length. The Tensile Strength or Modulus of Elasticity of all steel = 30,000,000 psi 20 peak stress is represented by point D in Figure 2. 0 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.010 0.012 Strain, in/in Figure 3 - Stress-strain diagram for various steels. (from Muhlenbruch, C.W.: Testing of Engineering Materials, Van Nos- trand, New York, 1944.) 2 Copyright 2013 ADMET, Inc. 51 Morgan Drive, Norwood, MA 02062 A few words about mechanical properties Figure 3 shows the relative magnitudes of the stress-strain • Both elastic and plastic deformation occur during curves for various steels. Figure 4 depicts the magnitudes a forming process. Upon removal of the external forces, of Tensile Strength, Yield Strength, Elongation and Re- the internal elastic stresses relax. If the forming process is duction of Area as the carbon content of steel is varied. not designed properly, the stress relaxation or “springback” will cause the part to change shape or distort. A material • In general, as Reduction of Area increases, the with a lower value for Young’s Modulus, E, and/or a higher minimum allowable bend radius for a sheet material value for Yield Strength will exhibit greater “springback” decreases. Therefore, as the carbon content of steel or shape distortion. Therefore, as the carbon content of increases the minimum bend radius increases. steel increases the amount of “springback” increases. • Yield Strength and Tensile Strength are not directly related to formability, however, the closer the magnitude of the two stresses, the more work hardened the metal. Therefore, as the carbon content of steel decreases the material appears as if it is more work hardened. 140 120 100 Tensile Strength 80 60 Yield Strength 40 Reduction of Area Ultimate and Yield Strength, ksi Strength, Yield and Ultimate Elongation in 2 in Elongation and ReductionElongation percent of Area, 20 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 Carbon, percent Figure 4- Effect of carbon on tensile properties of hot-worked carbon steels. (from Sisco, F.T.: Modern Metallurgy for Engineers, Pitman, New York, 1948.