Learning Forum

[Ashish Khemka]

What is Young's modulus? Can it be obtained by performing numerical simulations?

[Samir Kadam]

Young's modulus or Young modulus is a mechanical property that measures the stiffness of a solid material. It defines the relationship between stress (force per unit area) and strain (proportional deformation) in a material in the linear elasticity regime of a uniaxial deformation. Generally, Young's modulus is one of the input parameters when performing numerical simulations i.e. the user defines the Young's modulus. So it cannot be obtained as an output variable from numerical simulations.

[prajput]

Although the above answer is true in most cases, there may be certain exceptional cases when simulations are used to find Young's modulus. For example, in case of composites, you may have a structure on microscale which repeats itself to form a much larger composite structure on a macroscale (the repeating structure is known as Representative Volume Element or RVE) and we know the Young's modulus and other material properties for the material forming this RVE, using appropriate boundary conditions, we may be able to calculate the Young's modulus of the macroscopic structure. Even in this case, the Finite Element Analysis software (such as Ansys) will not give you the Young's modulus directly as an output, but it can be calculated based on the output Reaction Forces and applied displacements etc.

[Ashish Khemka]

That is very helpful. Thank you both.