Equivalent or Von Mises Stress

Three-dimensional stresses and strains build up in many directions. A common way to express these multidirectional stresses is to summarize them into an Equivalent stress, also known as the von-Mises stress. A three-dimensional solid has six stress components. Sometimes an uniaxial stress test finds material properties experimentally. In that case, the combination of the six stress components to a single equivalent stress relates the real stress system.