Stress
Meaning
Stress is the ratio of force to area at a point on a real or imaginary surface.
Rationale
Stress is used to represent how forces on surfaces vary with orientation and location.
Examples
Attributes
- stress is a vector
- common units are N/m2, Pa, lbf/in2 or psi, lbf/ft2 or psf
Connections
- stress is related to force through integration over area.
Force = Integral (stress * dA)
- stress is commonly decomposed into a normal and tangental components
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- normal stress (or pressure in fluid mechanics)
- shear stress
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page revision: 3, last edited: 15 Jun 2010 13:11