Yield Curve (physics)

In material science, the yield curve describes the behaviour of a plastic material.

In a two-dimensional stress system (i.e. given forces acting upon a material from two directions) the pliability or stiffness of the material can be plotted on a graph in the form of a yield curve. The curve expresses the failure stress, the combination of stresses at which the material yields, or cracks. The area inside the curve, accordingly, represents a safe combination of stresses for this material.The yield curve determines how much a material is elongating after yield point of the material.

Famous quotes containing the words yield and/or curve:

    Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty.... Here was every sensuous curve of the “human figure divine” but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, in the glory of its chaste convulsions and in its swelling, sweeping, forward movement of finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace.
    Edward Weston (1886–1958)