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Similarities Between a Flexural Test and Tensile Test?
Flexure strength is typically higher than tensile strength.
A material’s flexural strength would be the same as the tensile strength if the material is completely homogeneous. In fact, most materials have small (or large) defects in them which concentrate the stresses locally, effectively causing a localized weakness. When a material is bent only the extreme fibers are at the largest stress so, if those fibers are free from defects, the flexural strength will be controlled by the strength of those intact 'fibers'. However, if the same material was subjected to only tensile forces then all the fibers in the material are at the same stress and failure will initiate when the weakest fiber reaches its limiting tensile stress. Therefore it is common for flexural strengths to be higher than tensile strengths for the same material. Conversely, a homogeneous material with defects only on its surfaces (e.g. due to scratches) might have a higher tensile strength than flexural strength.
If we don't take into account defects of any kind, it is clear that the material will fail under a bending force which is smaller than the corresponding tensile force. Both of these forces will induce the same failure stress, whose value depends on the strength of the material.
