Introduction to plasticity and thermal stresses

This chapter will address two important problems often encountered in the design of structure. In section 2.1, constitutive laws for linearly elastic, isotropic and anisotropic materials are presented. Although linearly elastic material behavior is often assumed in preliminary design work, it is often necessary to study the behavior of structures when the material they are made of yields and begins to deform inelastically.

Two issues will be addressed in this chapter. First, when a material is subjected to a complex state of stress, criteria for predicting the onset of yielding will be presented in section 13.1. Next, the behavior of simple structures operating in the plastic range will be discussed in section 13.2.