Stress relaxation and mechanical behavior of metals

Stress relaxation tests have been made in the temperature range 200° to 400°C on two materials, the Mg-Al eutectic alloy and commercial purity zirconium. The materials represent respectively high and low homologous temperature regimes. The novel features of the tests are the use of high speed, high sensitivity digital measurement techniques and the direct reduction of the data to stress-strain rate curves. It was possible in this way to obtain phenomenological information on the material behavior over a very large range of strain rate with very few specimens. Comparison was made with results obtained by more conventional differential strain rate tests. The test lends itself well to establishing the phenomenology of mechanical behavior of metals.