---
title: Mechanical Properties
description: This topic covers how materials deform, fracture, and respond to external forces. Learners will understand concepts like stress, strain, elasticity, plasticity, and fatigue, enabling them to evaluate and predict material behavior under various loading conditions.
category: engineering
subcategory: materials-science
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/mechanical-properties
---

# Mechanical Properties

This topic covers how materials deform, fracture, and respond to external forces. Learners will understand concepts like stress, strain, elasticity, plasticity, and fatigue, enabling them to evaluate and predict material behavior under various loading conditions.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Courses • 4 Websites

## Websites

### 1. ASM Digital Library

ASM International's online library of the ASM Handbooks, journals, and conference proceedings, with detailed reference data on tensile, fatigue, fracture, and hardness properties of metals and alloys. Engineers use it to look up property data and testing methods; most content requires a subscription.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://dl.asminternational.org/

**Tags:** mechanical-properties, materials-engineering, metallurgy, asm-handbooks, materials-testing

### 2. matweb.com

MatWeb is an online database of material properties with searchable data sheets for metals, polymers, ceramics, and composites, featuring mechanical properties such as tensile/yield strength, Young’s modulus, hardness, and related thermal/physical data.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://matweb.com

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, material-science

### 3. doitpoms.ac.uk

DOIT POMS is a UK academic resource offering tutorials and study materials on the mechanical properties of materials, covering topics such as elasticity, plasticity, strength, toughness, and standard testing methods, with explanations and practice problems.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://doitpoms.ac.uk

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, material-science

### 4. failurecriteria.com

A concise technical resource explaining material failure criteria used in mechanics of materials, detailing how different criteria predict failure under load and how to compare them.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://failurecriteria.com

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, material-science

## Courses

### 1. Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know

**Author:** James F. Shackelford

Introductory UC Davis course taught by James Shackelford covering ten core topics in engineering materials: the main material families, mechanical and electrical properties, thermally activated processes and the Arrhenius relationship, and manufacturing principles. Learners come away understanding how a material's structure determines its properties.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/materials-science

**Tags:** materials-science, mechanical-properties, structure-property-relationships, engineering-materials, arrhenius-kinetics

## Books

### 1. Mechanical Behavior of Materials

**Author:** Marc André Meyers, Krishan Kumar Chawla

A graduate-level textbook linking mechanics and materials science to explain elasticity, plasticity, dislocations, fracture, fatigue, and creep in metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites. Readers learn to connect microstructure to mechanical response and apply flow and fracture criteria.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132628171?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, material-science

### 2. Deformation and Fracture Mechanics

**Author:** Richard W. Hertzberg

A standard engineering textbook on how materials deform and fail, covering dislocation plasticity, creep, linear elastic fracture mechanics, and fatigue crack growth. Readers learn to analyze failures and apply fracture toughness and fatigue data to design and material selection.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471012149?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, material-science

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