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Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS)

Last updated: March 22, 2018

What Does Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) Mean?

Ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled. The ultimate tensile strength of a material is calculated by dividing the cross-section area of the material tested by the stress placed on the material, generally expressed in terms of pounds or tons per square inch of material.

UTS is the final amount of stress sustained in a tensile test at the exact moment the object ruptures.

Tensile strength is an important measure of a material’s ability to perform in an application, and the measurement is widely used when describing the properties of metals and alloys.

Ultimate tensile strength is also known as tensile strength or the ultimate.

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Corrosionpedia Explains Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS)

The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is a material's maximum resistance to fracture. It is equivalent to the maximum load that can be carried by one square inch of cross-sectional area when the load is applied as simple tension.

The UTS is the maximum engineering stress in a uniaxial stress-strain test. The UTS can differ, depending on the type of material:

  • For non-deformable materials, it is the nominal stress at which a round bar of the material, loaded in tension, separates.
  • For deformable materials, it occurs at the onset of necking at strains preceding breakage (separation).
  • For brittle solids such as ceramics, glasses, and brittle polymers, it is the same as the failure strength in tension.
  • For metals and most composites, it is larger than the yield strength by a factor of between 1.1 and 5 because of work hardening or, in the case of composites, load transfer to the reinforcement.

The UTS is not used in the design of ductile static materials because design practices dictate the use of the yield stress. It is, however, used for quality control, because of the ease of testing. It is a common engineering parameter when designing brittle materials, because there is no yield point.

The UTS is usually found by performing a tensile test and recording the engineering stress versus strain curve. The highest point of the stress-strain curve is the UTS. It is an intensive property; therefore its value does not depend on the size of the test specimen. However, it is dependent on other factors, such as:

  • Preparation of the specimen
  • Presence of surface defects
  • Temperature of the test environment and the material
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Synonyms

Tensile Strength

Ultimate Strength

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