Stress–strain curve

A graph of stress against strain that shows how a material deforms under load, including its elastic response, yielding, and failure.

Hooke's law: A relation stating that stress is proportional to strain within a material's linear elastic range. It describes the initial straight portion of many stress–strain curves.
Stress (mechanics): Internal force per unit area within a material, commonly resolved into normal and shear components. It is the vertical quantity plotted on a stress–strain curve.
Ductility: A material's capacity to undergo plastic deformation before fracture. The strain at fracture indicates how much tensile deformation a material tolerates.
Compression testing: A test that loads a specimen by pressing its ends together while measuring force and deformation. Its compression curve can differ from a tensile curve because materials respond differently by loading mode.
Young's modulus: A measure of a material's stiffness, defined as tensile stress divided by tensile strain in the linear elastic range. The curve's initial slope gives Young's modulus in a tensile test.
Strain (mechanics): A dimensionless measure of deformation, often expressed as change in length divided by original length. It is the horizontal quantity plotted on the curve.
Toughness (materials science): A material's capacity to absorb energy before fracturing, often measured by energy per unit volume. The area under the curve estimates energy absorbed per volume before failure.
Shear stress–strain curve: A graph of shear stress against shear strain for a material under shear loading. It plots a different stress and strain mode than the usual tensile curve.
Elastic deformation: Deformation that disappears when the applied load is removed. This reversible response occupies the curve before the elastic limit.
Tensile testing: A test that pulls a specimen while measuring applied force and deformation. It produces the data used to construct a tensile stress–strain curve.

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