The term “mechanical behavior” encompasses the response of materials to external forces. This text considers a wide range of topics. These include mechanical testing to determine material properties, plasticity for FEM analyses of automobile crashes, means of altering mechanical properties, and treatment of several modes of failure.

The two principal responses of materials to external forces are deformation and fracture. The deformation may be elastic, viscoelastic (time-dependent elastic deformation), plastic, or creep (time-dependent plastic deformation). Fracture may occur suddenly or after repeated application of loads (fatigue). For some materials, failure is time-dependent. Both deformation and fracture are sensitive to defects, temperature, and rate of loading.

The key to understanding these phenomena is a basic knowledge of the three-dimensional nature of stress and strain and common boundary conditions, which are covered in the first chapter. Chapter 2 covers elasticity, including thermal expansion. Chapters 3 and 4 treat mechanical testing. Chapter 5 is focused on mathematical approximations to stress–strain behavior of metals and how these approximations can be used to understand the effect of defects on strain distribution in the presence of defects. Yield criteria and flow rules are covered in Chapter 6. Their interplay is emphasized in problem solving. Chapter 7 treats temperature and strain-rate effects and uses an Arrhenius approach to relate them. Defect analysis is used to understand superplasticity as well as strain distribution.

Chapter 8 is devoted to the role of slip as a deformation mechanism. The tensor nature of stresses and strains is used to generalize Schmid's law.