|
|
|
Book Review: Atlas of Stress-Strain Curves
12-27-02
Publisher: ASM International
You may find it surprising that some people actually find value in stress and strain at work. More specifically, I'm referring to the primary method of representing the mechanical response of materials, their stress-strain curve. Stress-strain curves are important to designers in predicting the mechanical performance of their structure as well as to manufacturing engineers who want to know whether a material can be formed into a desired shape. With the increasingly common use of computational modeling to predict performance, stress-strain curves become a vital bit of technical information. Even with that being the case, finding stress-strain curve data for a wide range of alloys has been difficult unless you generated the results in your own lab.
The situation has improved thanks to the recent release of the updated edition of Atlas of Stress-Strain Curves, published by ASM International. While the first edition of the book, published in 1986, had a limited number of curves for aluminum-base materials, this new version expands that number significantly to 430 curves for aluminum. It is structured into three chapters, covering cast aluminum, wrought aluminum, and aluminum laminates, with the alloys in each chapter classified in numerical order by AA designation. (There are, of course, many curves for other, less "significant" metals such as cast iron, steel, copper, titanium, and magnesium in this book as well.) I was impressed by the diversity of information presented. For example, for 6061 aluminum alloy there are 34 separate entries presenting curves for a variety of tempers, product forms, test temperatures, loading conditions, and test directions. For each entry there is source information as well as specifics about alloy composition, processing details, specimen dimensions, and often helpful interpretive notes. Further, the Ramberg-Osgood parameter, a measure of strain hardening useful for modeling the stress-strain curve, is provided for many of the alloys.
In addition to the specific stress-strain curve information, this book provides a thorough yet concise overview article called "Representation of Stress-Strain Behavior". The article explains the typical features of stress-strain curves and the parameters that are used from them for describing the mechanical response of a material. Discussion includes strength parameters, modulus, strain hardening, and ductility. Sections on compression and torsion as well as tensile testing and effects of strain rate and temperature are included. A glossary containing definitions of important terms and a good set of references for further reading are part of this article as well.
In summary, the second edition of Atlas of Stress-Strain Curves should be a useful
reference addition for those involved with mechanical behavior of aluminum, from
the testing, modeling, and use perspectives. It is available from ASM International
online at www.asminternational.org.
Article courtesy of Secat, Inc. - Research Resource for the Aluminum Industry
www.secat.net
|
|
|
