Talk:Tensile stress

Is it correct to call tensile stress tension? Tension is a force, tensile stress is force/area (i.e. they are different dimensionally). The tension article supports this - does it need changing?

I don't think 'The volume of the material stays constant' is true, except at best for a single value of poisson's ratio.

Normal stress
Normal stress redirects here. Is it the same, or is it a special case involving perpendicularity? It should be explained in the article. -- Beland 20:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Normal stress should not redirect here. Tensile stress is only one of two normal stresses, the other being compressive stress, both of which act normal to the surface.  Squids ' and ' Chips  16:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)