The RambergOsgood equation was created to describe the non linear relationship between

stress and strainthat is, the stressstrain curvein materials near their yield points. It is
especially useful for metals that harden with plastic deformation (see strain hardening), showing
a smooth elastic-plastic transition.

In its original form, the equation for strain (deformation) is

where

is strain,
is stress,
is Young's modulus, and
and are constants that depend on the material being considered.

The first term on the right side, , is equal to the elastic part of the strain, while the second term, ,
accounts for the plastic part, the parameters and describing the hardening behavior of the
material. Introducing the yield strength of the material, , and defining a new parameter, , related
to as , it is convenient to rewrite the term on the extreme right side as follows:

Replacing in the first expression, the RambergOsgood equation can be written as