Stiffness and hardness , strength and toughness

[Cosmossos]

Hello
can someone please tell me the difference between stiffness and hardness and between strength and toughness?

thanks

[tiny-tim]

Hello Cosmossos! :smile:
Hello
can someone please tell me the difference between stiffness and hardness

Sorry, don't know. :redface:
… and between strength and toughness?

Breaking strength (of a material) is force per area (stress) just before failure (in N/m2)

Toughness (of a material) is energy per volume just before failure (in J/m3).

But isn't energy = force times displacement, so energy per volume = force times displacement per volume = force times area? 1 J/m3 = 1 N/m2 ? :confused:

Yeees, but energy is the integral of force times displacement, so the total energy (per volume) absorbed by the material before failure depends on the shape of the force-displacement (per volume) curve (more usually called the strain-stress curve)

(strain = ∫ displacement per thickness = ∫ displacement times area per volume,
and stress = force per area,
so strain-stress = ∫ force times displacement per volume = energy per volume)

For good examples of stress-strain curves, see this diagram (http://www.etomica.org/app/modules/sites/MaterialFracture/Images/SSPicture2.jpg)
on the page http://www.etomica.org/app/modules/sites/MaterialFracture/Background1.html …

the linear part is the elastic region, where energy per volume is proportional to force per area, the non-linear (curved) part is the plastic region (the ductile region, if we're talking about tension), and it ends at failure …

the total energy absorbed by the material (the area under the graph) depends on the shape of that non-linear part.

(it curves down at the end because of the difference between apparent stress and actual stress … the actual stress-strain curve keeps going up :rolleyes: … see this diagram (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Stress_v_strain_A36_2.svg/300px-Stress_v_strain_A36_2.svg.png) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress–strain_curve)

Brittle materials are strong but not tough … they fail almost immediately after the end of the linear part. :redface:

Yield strength (of a material) is force per area at the top of the linear part.

If we bothered to define yield toughness (of a material), it would be energy per volume at the top of the linear part, but that would simply be proportional to yield strength, so we don't bother. :wink:

[Mapes]

Stiffness and hardness are resistance to elastic (temporary) and plastic (permanent) deformation, respectively.

[Cosmossos]

thank you very much !!!