Yield identification by passing an electric current

Material characterization is the backbone for structural components and for manufacturing. The material characterization provides elasticity, yielding, tensile strength, necking, and total elongation. These material properties provides the limits for operations on the components either in performance or in manufacturing. Among these properties yielding is the one which separates the members in elastic deformation than in plastic deformation. Thus identification of yielding is important to accurately design the components. Traditionally the material was characterize through a tensile test and the deviation from elastic to plastic was considered as yielding. Due to continuous profile of tensile curve the yielding was identified by using 0.2% of offset strain. For elevated temperature the material was enclosed in the furnace with the desired constant temperature and further pulled using tensile test to characterize the material. In this paper an aluminium alloy is pulled through tensile test while passing the electric current. This current was set such a way that the specimen will get resistive heating providing the same temperature as in thermal furnace based heating. The tensile curves were then compared from baseline, thermal based heating and using electric heating. It was found that at yielding of the material, the temperature of the specimen was varied and provided the similarities such as yielding in case of electric current.