Choose which property you are interested in finding out more about.

	Tensile and Compressive Properties Measurement of strength, proof stress, stiffness, strain hardening exponent. Subtopics: specimen preparation, testing machines, strain measurement, nominal and true stress/strain curves, alloy comparison.
	Measurement of Ductility Subtopics: Approaches to ductility measurement, elongation measurement, reduction in area.
	Fracture Toughness and Fatigue Measurement of toughness and fracture toughness. Subtopics: Crack formation, stress concentration, KIc determination, test validation and R-curves, Khan tear test, Fatigue testing, S-N curves.

Learning Outcomes for this Section

After completing this section, you should be able to:

• describe the standard test methods for tensile testing and identify the properties that can be obtained with it
• demonstrate an understanding of the different regions of a typical stress strain graph during tensile testing
• describe the tests used to determine the fracture toughness of aluminium alloys
• describe the tests used to measure the fatigue properties of aluminium alloys

Pre-Requisites

You should be familiar with the concepts covered in: Strengthening Mechanisms;