STRESS GLG.

321: STRUCTURAL
GEOLOGY
RECOMMENDED READING

Fossen. Structural Geology. Chapter 4. Stress.

Davies et al. Structural Geology of Rocks and Regions.
Chapter 3. Force, Stress and Strength.
Twiss and Moores. Structural Geology. Chapter 7. Stress

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FORCE

•Push or pull on a body

•Tends to cause acceleration
•A vector quantity described by its magnitude and
direction
•In a given system of 3D coordinates (x,y,z) force can be
defined represented by components parallel to each of
the coordinate axes
•The unit of force is the Newton (𝑁)

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 TYPES OF FORCES
Internal: Originate inside the body and include the interatomic
forces within the crystal lattice.
 These forces are balanced internally and do not cause motion or deformation of the
body.
 They determine the material properties of the body (Strength, stiffness and
hardness).
 Internal forces determine the values of material constants (eg Young’s Modulus) that
appear in equations describing material behaviour.

External: Originate outside the body and are responsible for

deformation and motion which are preserved in the structures
we study in rocks. They are of 2 types
 Body Forces affect an entire volume of rock both outside and inside (every particle
of mass).
 The most important body force for the structural geologist is Gravity.
 Surface or Contact Forces Act along a surface of contact whether external or
internal
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STRESS

•What actually causes deformation is not the applied force

but the intensity of the force applied over an area. Stress
•In discussing stress we start from a limited definition of
stress (Stress on a surface: Traction and Surface stress)
after that we move to a more complete definition of Stress
(Stress at a point)

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TRACTION AND SURFACE STRESS
•Traction is the ratio of the applied force to the area over
which the force acts
Σ = 𝐹ൗ𝐴
•It is a vector quantity
•Traction, like any other vector has two components. A
normal component (𝜎𝑁 ) acting perpendicular to the
surface and a shear component (𝜎𝑠 ) acting along the
surface
•Surface Stress is defined as two equal and opposite
tractions acting on both sides of a surface

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 SIGN CONVENTIONS
•Equal and opposite normal tractions acting towards each
other are called compressive.
•When they act away from each they are known as tensile
•Geologists normally consider compressive stress as positive(+)
and tensile stress as negative(-)
•This is because most of the stresses (if not all) within the
earth’s crust are all compressive
•Shear stresses which tend to lead to clockwise rotations are
considered as negative while those which lead to
anticlockwise rotations are positive

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 DECOMPOSITION OF THE TRACTION
VECTOR
•Unlike the Force vector the decomposition of the
components of traction is not so straightforward
•From the figure we realize that the Traction
vector depends not only on the Force Vector but
also on the orientation of the surface on which
the force vector is acting
•We must account for the changes in both the
force components Fn and Fs, and the area A, as
the orientation of the plane changes.
•From the figure:
𝜎𝑁 = 𝜎 cos 2 𝜃
𝜎𝑆 = 𝜎 sin 𝜃 cos 𝜃
•This points to a fact that stress is a different kind
of quantity from the usual vector quantity
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 STRESS AT A POINT
•For a given system of forces applied to
a body of material the surface stress at
a given point varies with the orientation
of the surface through the point
•For a point within a rock the true state
of stress can be defined by surface
stresses acting on planes in an infinite
number of possible orientations passing
through that point
•Across the planes are two equal and
opposite tractions. These vectors will be
of different lengths
•A representative family of such vectors
forms the outline of an ellipsoid. This
ellipsoid is called the Stress Ellipsoid

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 THE STRESS ELLIPSOID
•The Stress ellipsoid has 3 axes of maximum,
minimum and intermediate stress denoted by
𝜎1 , 𝜎2 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜎3 respectively
•These axes are called the principal stresses.
• In the direction of the principal stress, the
shear stress is zero.
•The planes on which the principal stress acts
is called the principal planes which are 3
mutually perpendicular planes
•The coordinate axes parallel to the principal
stresses are called principal axes or
principal coordinates.
•Unless a particular surface is specified,
Stress is not a vector quantity but a 2nd
order Tensor 14
 STRESS COMPONENTS
•Unlike vectors (which require 3 components to
describe them in 3D), 2nd order tensors
normally require 9 components to describe
them in 3D
•The components can be described by
considering the point to lie within an
infinitesimal cube
•Each surface of the cube has one normal and
2 shear stress vectors along each of its edges
•The orthogonal planes of the cube are named
x, y and z by being perpendicular to the x, y
and z axes respectively
•The components are identified by 2 subscripts:
• The first subscript shows the plane on which the vector
acts
• The second subscripts is the coordinate axes to which
the vector is parallel
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 STRESS COMPONENTS (CONTD.)
•Using this we can define 3 normal (𝜎𝑥𝑥 , 𝜎𝑦𝑦 and 𝜎𝑧𝑧 ) and 6 shear
components (𝜎𝑥𝑦 , 𝜎𝑦𝑥 , 𝜎𝑦𝑧 , 𝜎𝑧𝑦 , 𝜎𝑥𝑧 and 𝜎𝑧𝑥 )
•Given a state of equilibrium, we have
𝜎𝑥𝑦 =𝜎𝑦𝑥 , 𝜎𝑦𝑧 =𝜎𝑧𝑦 and 𝜎𝑥𝑧 =𝜎𝑧𝑥
•This leaves us with 6 independent components
•If the cube were oriented in such a way that shear stresses were
zero we are left with the normal stresses which are equivalent to the
principal stresses with the surface of the cube defining the 3
principal stress planes

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 STRESS MATRIX
•2nd order tensors are usually represented by a 2D array of numbers (Matrix)
•The 9 components of stress can be written as matrix known as the Stress Matrix
(Tensor)
𝜎11 𝜎12 𝜎13
𝜎21 𝜎22 𝜎23
𝜎31 𝜎32 𝜎33
•The Normal stresses 𝜎11 , 𝜎22 , 𝜎33 form the diagonal of the matrix.
•If the stress components are principal stress components the matrix becomes:
𝜎1 0 0
0 𝜎2 0
0 0 𝜎3
•Stress Tensors represent the same state of stress (same shape and orientation of
the stress ellipsoid) regardless of the choice of coordinate system.

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 MEAN STRESS VS DEVIATORIC STRESS
•The stress tensor can be split into 2 components representing the mean stress and
the deviatoric stress
•The mean stress is the arithmetic mean of the of the 3 principal stresses: 𝜎𝑚 =
𝜎1 +𝜎2 +𝜎3
•The mean stress is the isotropic component of the stress.
𝜎𝑚 0 0
0 𝜎𝑚 0
0 0 𝜎𝑚
•The other anisotropic part of the stress is the deviatoric stress. It is the difference
between the total stress and the mean stress.
•When the deviatoric stress is zero then the mean stress becomes equal to the total
stress and 𝜎1 = 𝜎2 = 𝜎3 = 𝜎𝑚 . This state of stress is known as hydrostatic stress
and shape of the stress ellipsoid is a sphere.
•Isotropic stress normally results in dilation while the anisotropic component of the
stress is what causes distortion.
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MOHR DIAGRAM FOR 2D STRESS
•The relationship between the normal and shear stress
components for planes of all possible orientations passing
through a point can be calculated.
•The possible values of normal and shear stresses comprise
a circle in when plotted on a Mohr diagram, where normal
stress plots on the horizontal axes and shear stress plots on
the vertical

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3D MOHR DIAGRAMS AND STATES OF
STRESS

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