Before a material can safely be used in the making of structural parts or members, a number of its properties must be known.

In the case of metals such as steel, cast iron, brozne, aluminum, and others which are widely used as structural members and machine parts, we must have reliable information concerning such properties as strenght, elasticty, stiffness, ductility, malleability, toughness, etc.

Strength is the ability of a material to resist stress without failure. Several materials, such as structural steel, wrought iron, aluminium, and copper, have approximately equal strength in tension and compression, while their strength in shear is about two-thirds of that in tension. The measure of the strength of a a material is its ultimate stress, or the greatest force per unit area it can withstand without rupture.

Elasticity is that property of a material whereby a body, when deformed, automatically recovers its original size and shape after removal of a deforming force. This property is imortant in all structures subjected to varying loads and is exceedingly important in precision tools and machines. Stiffness is the property by virtue of which a material can resist deformation. This property is desirable in materials used in beams, columns, machines, and machine tools. The measure of the stiffness of a material is its modlulus of elasticity, obtained by dividing the unit stress by the unit deformation caused by that stress. Ductility is a measure of the ability of a metal to plastically deform without fracturing. Ductility is generally associated with tensile properies or the ability to be cold drawn, as in wire drawing. Copper, aluminium, and wrought iron are among the ductile metals. Percent elongation and reduction of area in the tension test are the usual measure of ductility. Ductility is desirable in a member or part which max be subjected to sudden and severe loads, since evident excessive deformation would give a warning of impending failure.

Brittleness is the opposite of ductility. Brittle materials fail suddenly without warning when stressed beyond their strength. Malleability can be defined as the same as ductility, except that it is applied to compression. Thus, this property enables a material to undergo great change in shape without rupture under compressive stress, as for example, copper, aluminium, or wrought iron being hammered into various shapes or steel being rolled into structural shapes or sheets. Hardness is the ability of a material to resist indentation or abrasion. It is most commonly measured by the Brinell test, in which a hardened-steel ball 10 mm in diameter is forced into a flat surface of a test specimen by a force of 3000 kg. The force devised by the surface area of the spherical indentation is called the Brinell hardness number.