YoungTurk,
My sentence you quoted is correct. Metals yield by shear. The maximum principle stress is irrelevant, however the square root of the sum of the squares of the differences of the principle stresses is important. Look at the von Mises (also known as the octahedral shear stress or distortion energy) criterion:
[σ]e = {[([σ]1-[σ]2)2+([σ]2-[σ]3)2+([σ]3-[σ]1)2]0.5}/[√]2
Assume a material's yield stress [σ]y = 5
If [σ]1 = 5, [σ]2 = 0, & [σ]3 = 0, then [σ]e = 5 and yielding occurs.
If [σ]1 = 10, [σ]2 = 9, & [σ]3 = 9, then [σ]e = 1.2 and yielding does not occur.
Thus, maximum principle stress is not relevant to yielding, however the square root of the sum of the squares of the differences is relevant.
Regards,
Cory
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