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3.032x Mechanical Behavior of Materials

Fall 2014

Professor L J Gibson

Overview:
This subject provides an introduction to the mechanical behavior of materials,
both from the continuum and atomistic points of view. At the continuum level,
we learn how forces and displacements translate into stress and strain
distributions within the material. At the atomistic level, we learn the
mechanisms that control the mechanical properties of materials. Material
behaviors include linear elasticity (recoverable deformation at small
displacements), viscoelasticity (materials that exhibit behavior intermediate to an
elastic solid and a viscous fluid), plasticity (permanent deformation), creep (time
dependent behavior in crystalline materials), brittle fracture (rapid crack
propagation) and fatigue (failure due to repeated loading of a material).
Examples are drawn from crystalline materials, glasses, polymers, biomaterials,
composites and cellular materials.


Grading:

Problem sets: 25%
Quiz 1 25%
Quiz 2 25%
Quiz 3 25%

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Syllabus:

Stress-strain behavior and linear elasticity (3 weeks)
Normal and shear stress, 3D stress states
Normal and shear strain
Hooke's law for isotropic materials
Stress strain curves for engineering materials
Strain energy
Anisotropic materials and symmetry
Composite materials

Atomistic basis for linear elasticity (~1 week)
Bonding between atoms; energetic basis for linear elasticity
Thermal strain; origins of thermal strain
Rubber elasticity: entropic basis for non-linear elasticity

Stress transformations (~1 week)
Equivalent stresses for varying orientations
Principal stresses, maximum shear stress
Mohr's circles

Beam bending (~1 week)
Shear and bending moment diagrams
Normal stresses
Displacements
Optimum material for beam of a given stiffness

Column buckling (0.5 week)
Elastic instabilities
Critical buckling load

Cellular materials (0.5 week)
Foams: beam bending and column buckling
Cellular materials in nature and medicine

Linear viscoelasticity (1 week)
Creep and stress relaxation
Boltzmann's superposition principle
Spring-dashpot models
Molecular mechanisms

Plasticity and yielding (2 weeks)
Measurement of yield strength
Yield criteria: Tresca and Von Mises
Theoretical yield strength of crystalline materials
Dislocations: geometry and motion
Dislocation mechanics
Strengthening mechanisms

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Creep of crystalline materials (1 week)
Diffusional flow
Power law creep
Deformation mechanism maps

Brittle fracture (0.5 week)
Griffith criteria for brittle fracture
Stress analysis of cracks
Plastic zone size
Measurement of fracture toughness; data
Mechanisms of fast fracture
Ductile to brittle transition

Fatigue (0.5 week)
Fatigue of uncracked components; empirical equations
Fatigue of cracked components; Paris law

Additional reading:

Ashby MF and Jones DRH (2012) Engineering Materials I: An introduction to
properties, applications and design 4th Edition. Butterworth Heinemann.

Gere JM and Goodno BJ (2009) Mechanics of Materials 8th Edition. Cengage
Learning.

Hertzberg RW (1996) Deformation and Fracture Mechanics of Engineering
Materials 4th Edition. John Wiley and Sons.