Abstract: To find solutions to shredding and recovery processing of end-of-life vehicles and household appliances, by way of tensile test, the mechanical characteristics of the light metal scrap material are obtained. On the basis of strengthening effect, the constitutive relations of materials are reduced to bilinear model. Through the trousers test, light metal scrap produced equal and opposite elastic-plastic bending deformation twice in the tearing process is observed. So in process of trousers tearing test, the total work external force did is mainly composed of specific tearing work and elastic-plastic bending work of trousers legs. The features of light metal scrap materials in tearing and shredding process are investigated, and the specific tearing work per unit area of new crack surface is regarded as a tearing property of light metal. The specific tearing work under different loading rate is compared and that the specific tearing work is not insensitive to loading rate in a certain range is found. The investigation showed that：The tensile specific work of rupture of light metal scrap is one order bigger than specific tearing work, meaning that tearing mode will be better on shredding recovery treatment of end-of-life vehicles and household appliances.

Key words: Elastic-plastic deformation, Light metals, Recycling, Tearing work, Trousers tearing testing