Chapter 7

Building Steels
 §7.3 Technical Properties of
Construction Steels

Tensile property
Ø Stress-strain chart of soft steel
Ø Strength
Ø Plasticity
Impact toughness
Cold-bending property
Cold working
The essential properties of steels of steel
structure and reinforced concrete in civil
engineering are
mechanical property
n tensile property
n impact toughness
n fatigue strength
processing property
n cold bending property
welding property i a l
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n

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ess rties
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 Tensile Property
Tensile property is the most important
property of the building steels.
The most magnificent property indexes,
which can be showed in the stress-strain
graph of soft steel, are
n yield stress

n tensile strength

n elongation after the steels are pulled

Tensile Property video
Stress-strain chart of soft steel is shown in Fig.7.2.2

σ
C
D
B
σb
σSU A
σSL
σP
0
ε
δ
Fig.7.3.1 Stress-strain Chart of Soft Steel
 Strength

Definition
Yield Strength is the capacity that steels
begin to lose their ability of resisting
transmutation then the ability of producing
much transmutation results.
 Yield
Significance Strength
Ø It is considered as the turning point from the
phase of flexibility transmutation to that of
plasticity .
Ø When outside force is bigger than yield strength,
the transmutation can’t be restored, and the
interior stress will be distributed to the low-stress
parts automatically.
Ø To sum up, yield strength is the basis of structure
design.
 Formula

σs － yield strength
Fs － yield stress
Ao － cross-section of specimen
Interpretation
Regarding the steels with uncertain yield strength,
the stress can be referred to as σ0.2 when 0.2%
residual deformation occurs, Fig.7.2.3

O
ε
0.2%
Fig.7.3.2 Stress-strain Chart of Soft Steel
 Strength

Definition
σb is the maximum stress in which steels can
stand.
Significance
Ø When the outer force is bigger than
σ ， the steels totally lose their ability of
resisting transmutation and crack.
Ø So it can’t be adopted in construction
design.
 Yield ratio （ σs/σb ）
Ø Definition
Ø σs/σbis a reflection of the available ratio and security
of steels.
Significance
Ø Yield ratio is important to the available ratio and
security of steel(Tab.7.2.1, Fig7.2.4)
 Yield ratio （ σs/σb ）
Ø Significance σ
reasonable yield σb
ratio ：
carbon steel σs2
0.58—0.63
soft steel and alloy σs1
structure steels
0.65—0.75

Fig.7.3.3 Significance of yield ratio

ε
 Plasticity

Plasticity is the ability that the plasticity

transmutation against the outer force is
achieved without breakage.
 d0
the percentage elongation

L0

δn—the percentage elongation

L0—the former distance
L1— the distance after fracture L1
n=5d or 10d
d—diameter of steel
δ5 ＞ δ10
Shrinking rate of a cross-
section

Ψ—Shrinking rate of a cross-section

A0—the former cross-section
A1—the cross-section after fracture
 The index and the formula
 Explanation
 The percentage elongation is an important index
of demonstrating plasticity transmutation.
 Steel construction works within flexibility range.
 However, in the area where the stress is
concentrated, the stress is likely to be larger
than subdued strength, and has some plasticity
transmutation.
 So that the stress can be redistributed and the
construction can escape being destroyed.