Tensile Testing Process
Tensile testing determines a material’s strength and ductility by pulling a specimen until it breaks. The process begins with sample preparation, where a “dog-bone” shaped specimen is created to ensure a break in the central, narrow section. Next, the specimen is mounted in a tensile testing machine (also known as a universal testing machine). The machine then applies a controlled, increasing tensile force while a sensor records the force and an extensometer measures the elongation. The collected data is used to generate a stress-strain curve, which reveals key properties like yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and elongation at break.
