Brittleness

Brittleness is a material’s tendency to fracture with little or no plastic deformation under stress. It contrasts with ductility, which allows substantial permanent deformation before fracture.

Fracture mechanics: The study of how cracks initiate, grow, and cause materials to fail. It explains how a small flaw can trigger sudden fracture in a brittle material.
Plastic deformation: Permanent change in a material’s shape after applied stress exceeds its elastic limit. Brittle materials fracture with little plastic deformation.
Ductile–brittle transition: A change in fracture behavior from ductile to brittle as conditions such as temperature or loading rate change. Some materials become dangerously brittle below a transition temperature.
Ductile fracture: Fracture preceded by substantial plastic deformation, often with noticeable necking or tearing. It contrasts with fracture that occurs with little deformation.
Stress concentration: The localized increase in stress around geometric features or defects in a loaded material. Crack tips concentrate stress, helping brittle fractures propagate.
Ductility: A material’s capacity to undergo substantial plastic deformation before breaking. It is the clearest opposite of brittleness in tensile failure.
Brittle fracture: Fracture that occurs with little plastic deformation, often through rapid crack growth. It is the failure event that brittleness makes more likely.
Creep: Time-dependent deformation under sustained stress, especially at elevated temperatures. Creep involves gradual deformation rather than brittleness’s limited-deformation fracture.
Griffith criterion: A fracture condition balancing the energy released as a crack grows against the energy needed to create new surfaces. It predicts when flaws become unstable cracks in brittle solids.
Toughness: The energy a material can absorb before fracturing, often measured from a stress–strain curve. Brittleness is often associated with low energy absorption before fracture.

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