Stress & Strain

in
Lifting Equipment

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 Stress & Strain

• The following slides take a look at stress and strain in simple terms as they
relate to lifting equipment.

• You will not be required to carry out stress calculations but you do require
an understanding of their effects on the equipment you may be examining
or testing.

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 Conditions Of Force

Straight Pull

• A good example of this is a sling leg.

• When the sling is used, as in the picture, then it

is tension.

• The sling is now subjected to a tensile load or

force.

TENSION

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 Conditions Of Force

Squeezed

• Take the example of a lifting jack.

• When in use the jack is in compression

• There is now a compressive load or force

throughout the body.

COMPRESSION

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 Conditions Of Force

Single Shear

• Two plates are bolted together and subjected to

a tensile load.

• The bolt would then be subjected to the shear

stress set up between the two plates.

SINGLE SHEAR

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 Conditions Of Force

Double Shear

• Take the pin of a shackle.

• Where the load completely fills the jaws then

the shackle pin is in double shear.

DOUBLE SHEAR

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 Stress & Strain
• In everyday language stress and strain are synonyms and we often use one
to mean the other, however they are not the same.

• They are closely related, both being caused by an item being subjected to
an applied force.

• When an item is subjected to a force the crystals that make up the material
resist that force.

• This cumulative resistance is called Stress.

• We can determine the intensity of stress by dividing the applied load by the
cross sectional area of the material thus:

Load
Stress = This is Measured in units of N/ mm2 or MN/ mm2
Cross Sectional Area

• The imperial unit of stress is tons/ins².

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 Stress And Strain

• As the crystals resist the applied force, ie come under stress, the structure
deforms.

• For example: - If an item of lifting gear lifts a load it comes under tension
and it elongates.

• The relative deformation is called Strain.

• We can determine the strain by dividing the change in length by the original
length thus:

Change in Length
Strain = This is a ratio and therefore has no units
Original Length

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 Tensile Test

• When discussing material testing we see that a tensile test reveals a great
amount of information from a load extension diagram.

• From this test it is possible to quantify the important properties of the test
specimen.

• Testers and examiners need to know these properties and how they are
determined in order to understand various material specifications and relate
these to their suitability for lifting equipment.

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 Tensile Test
To carry out a tensile test :-

• Take a standard test piece of material and subject it to increasing loads.

• A graph is plotted as the material elongates and eventually fails.

• The resulting Load/Extension diagram is also a diagram of Stress/Strain as

the load results in stress and the extension is a measure of the strain.

• Five definite points can be seen as the line of the graph is produced.

– (A) Limit of Proportionality

– (B) Elastic Limit

– (C) Yield Point

– (D) Tensile Strength

– (E) Ultimate Breaking Stress.

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 Hooke’s Law & Young’s Modulus
Hooke’s Law

• Hooke's Law states that in an elastic material strain is proportional to stress.

• The point at which a material ceases to obey Hooke's Law is known as its elastic
limit.

• It means that the bigger the weight (stress) you hang on the string the more it will
stretch (strain).

• Whilst the elastic limit is not exceeded, the string will go back to its original length
when you take the weight off it, but if you add too much weight, the string will stretch
without going back to its original length when the weight is taken off.

• If you leave a very large weight hanging on the string, it will gradually get longer and
longer until it breaks. In this state the wire is behaving as if it were a fluid instead of a
solid.

Young's modulus

• The coefficient of elasticity of stretching. It is the ratio of the stress or stretching force
per unit cross sectional area to the strain or amount of stretching per unit of length.

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 Stress Calculations

• You will not be called upon to make stress calculations in your everyday job.
However you need to have a basic understanding for the purpose of this
course.

• Manufacturers employ their own specialists to carry out this work.

• It is useful for you to have a knowledge of how to perform simple stress

calculations to determine the suitability of a material for a lifting operation.

The basic formula are as follows: -

Load
Stress =
Cross  sectional area

Change in length
Strain =
Original length
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 Calculate Stress In A Bolt

CSA OF
BOLT = ¾ ²inch

12 TON

WHAT IS THE STRESS IN THE BOLT? 16 Tons/²Inch

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 Stress Calculation

• A sheave pin in double shear is subjected to a force of 10kN. If the pin has a
cross section area of 125mm², what is the shear stress in the pin?

• Stress = LOAD
CSA (cross sectional area)

• Note the DOUBLE SHEAR part: so 125 + 125 = total CSA of 250mm²

• Convert 10kN to Newton's = 10000N

10000N
250mm²

Stress in the pin = 40N/mm²

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 Any Questions?

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