Lecture 3

How is toughness different from strength?

From a physics point of view, the answer is that strength tells how much force is needed to break
a sample, and toughness tells how much energy is needed to break a sample. But that doesn't
really tell you what the practical differences are.

What is important knows that just because a material is strong, it isn't necessarily going to be
tough as well.

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 Lecture 3

The blue plot is the stress-strain curve for a sample that is strong, but not tough. As you can see,
it takes a lot of force to break this sample, but not much energy, as there isn't much area
underneath the curve. Likewise, this sample can't stretch very far before it breaks. A material
like this which is strong, but can't deform very much before it breaks is called brittle.

On the other hand, the red plot is a stress-strain curve for a sample that is both strong and tough.
This material is not as strong as the sample in the blue plot, but the area underneath its curve is a
lot larger than the area under the blue sample's curve. So it can absorb a lot more energy than the
blue sample can.

So why can the red sample absorb so much more energy than the blue plot? Take a look at the
two. The red sample elongates a lot more before breaking than the blue sample does. You see,
deformation allows a sample to dissipate energy. If a sample can't deform, the energy won't be
dissipated, and will cause the sample to break.

In real life, we usually want materials to be

tough and strong. Ideally, it would be nice
to have a material that wouldn't bend or
break, but this is the real world. You have
to make trade-offs. Take a look at the plots
again. The blue sample has a much higher
modulus than the red sample. While it's
good for materials in a lot of applications to
have high Moduli and resist deformation, in
the real world it's a lot better for a material
to bend than to break, and if bending,
stretching or deforming in some other way
prevents the material from breaking, all the
better. So when we design new polymers, or new composites, we often sacrifice a little bit of
strength in order to make the material tougher.

Macroscopic deformation of semicrystalline polymer sample

under tensile test

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 Lecture 3

The mechanism of plastic deformation is best described by the interactions between lamellar and
intervening amorphous regions in response to an applied tensile load. This process occurs in
several stages, which are schematically diagrammed in Figure above.
Two adjacent chain-folded lamellae and the interlamellar amorphous material, prior to
deformation, are shown in (a).
During the initial stage of deformation (b), the lamellar ribbons simply slide past one
another as the tie chains within the amorphous regions become extended.
Continued deformation in the second stage occurs by the tilting of the lamellae so that the
chain folds become aligned with the tensile axis (c).
Next, crystalline block segments separate from the lamellae, which segments remain
attached to one another by tie chains (d).
In the final stage (e), the blocks and tie chains become oriented in the direction of the
tensile axis.
Thus appreciable tensile deformation of semicrystalline polymers produces a highly oriented
structure.

Viscoelasticity
Viscoelasticity, also known as anelasticity, describes materials that exhibit both
viscous and elastic characteristics. Viscous materials, like honey, resist shear flow
and strain linearly with time when a stress is applied. Elastic materials strain
instantaneously when stretched and just as quickly return to their original state once
the stress is removed. Viscoelastic materials have elements of both of these
properties and, as such, exhibit time dependent strain.

Some examples of viscoelastic materials include amorphous polymers,

semicrystalline polymers, biopolymers, and metals at very high temperatures.

A viscoelastic material has the following properties:

stress relaxation occurs: step constant strain causes decreasing stress

creep occurs: step constant stress causes increasing strain
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 Lecture 3

1- Viscoelastic Creep
When subjected to a step constant stress, viscoelastic
materials experience a time-dependent increase in
strain. This phenomenon is known as viscoelastic
creep.

Creep is increasing deformation under constant load.

This contrasts with an elastic material which does not
exhibit increase deformation no matter how long the
load is applied. Creep is illustrated schematically in the
attached figure.

Viscoelastic creep is important when considering long-term structural design. Given loading and
temperature conditions, designers can choose materials that best suit component lifetimes.

0 and the change of deformation with

-dependent creep modulus is given by

o
E c (t )
(t )

2- Stress relaxation
The stress will be reduced or will relax under a
constant deformation. This behavior is illustrated in
the attached figure.

At low temperatures, amorphous polymers deform

elastically, like glass, at small elongation. At high
temperatures the behavior is viscous, like liquids. At
intermediate temperatures, the behavior, like a
rubbery solid, is termed viscoelastic.

Viscoelasticity is characterized by the viscoelastic relaxation modulus

(t )
E r (t )
o
If the material is strained to a value 0.it is found that the stress
needs to be reduced with time to maintain this constant value of
strain

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 Lecture 3

Most ceramics act as brittle materials

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