Could engineers have known ahead of time exactly how much pressure the levees protecting New Orleans could withstand before giving way? Is it possible to predict when and under what conditions ...

Scientists have completed one of the most detailed simulations to date of how materials break, according to two new studies. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of ...

Self-healing materials can autonomously repair damage and make bridges, roads, and aircraft more durable and sustainable.

Material resistance to crack growth and fracture is known as fracture toughness (K c), which determines the structural integrity of brittle materials by characterizing the rate at which energy is ...

(Nanowerk News) For the first time, researchers have been able to observe the way ceramic materials fracture on the atomic scale. They confirm that the arrangement of molecules between grains within a ...

Branched cracks in a single crystal of 2D hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). (Courtesy: J Lou/Rice University) Fracture tests carried out on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) show that this 2D material has ...