What is Tenacity – Tenacity is a term used to express the resistance which the body opposes to the separation of its parts. It is determined by forming the metal into a wire, and hanging on weights, to find how much will be required to break it.

• – – –

Excerpt from:
Title: Practical Mechanics for Boys
Author: J. S. Zerbe

• – – –

If we have two wires, the first with a transverse area only one-quarter that of the second, and the first breaks at 25 pounds, while the second breaks at 50 pounds, the tenacity of the first is twice as great as that of the second.

To the boy who understands simple ratio in mathematics, the problem would be like this:

25 × 4 : 50 × 1, or as 2 : 1.

What is the Most Tenacious Metal?

Steel has the greatest tenacity of all metals, and lead the least.

In proportion to weight, however, there are many substances which have this property in a higher degree. Cotton fibers will support millions of times their own weight.

There is one peculiar thing, that tenacity varies with the form of the body. A solid cylindrical body has a greater strength than a square one of the same size; and a hollow cylinder more tenacity than a solid one. This principle is well known in the bones of animals, in the feathers of birds, and in the stems of many plants.

In almost every metal tenacity diminishes as the temperature increases.