What is Brittleness? – Definition, and Meaning

What is a Brittleness?

Brittleness describes the property of a material that fractures when subjected to stress but has little tendency to deform before rupture.

Brittle materials are characterized by little deformation, poor capacity to resist impact and vibration of load, high compressive strength, and low tensile strength. Most inorganic non-metallic materials are brittle materials.

A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it fractures with little elastic deformation and without significant plastic deformation.

Brittle materials absorb relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength. Breaking is often accompanied by a sharp snapping sound.

When used in materials science, it is generally applied to materials that fail when there is little or no plastic deformation before failure. One proof is to match the broken halves, which should fit exactly since no plastic deformation has occurred.

When metals and polymers are cooled below a critical temperature ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) or glass transition temperature (Tg) respectively they become brittle.

This rapid change is catastrophic, especially when forces are acting on the body. The crack propagation is noted to be perpendicular to the applied forces that occur through molecular grains or grain boundaries.

The temperature in this case controls the molecular structure of a material such that it fails to retain its elasticity, hence leads to material failure.

Basically, all materials will eventually fail when the limits are exceeded, but in the case that it fails before any change in shape and geometrical size, then the material falls under brittleness.

Brittleness material failure occurs when there are two conditions:

• Stress acting on the surface of the material
• Surrounding temperatures below the melting point of a material

Brittleness in different materials

1. Polymers

The mechanical characteristics of polymers can be sensitive to temperature changes near room temperatures. For example, poly (methyl methacrylate) is extremely brittle at a temperature of 4˚C, but experiences increased ductility with increased temperature.

Amorphous polymers are polymers that can behave differently at different temperatures. They may behave like glass at low temperatures (the glassy region), a rubbery solid at intermediate temperatures (the leathery or glass transition region), and a viscous liquid at higher temperatures (the rubbery flow and viscous flow region).

This behavior is known as viscoelastic behavior. In the glassy region, the amorphous polymer will be rigid and brittle. With increasing temperature, the polymer will become less brittle.

2. Metals

Some metals show brittle characteristics due to their slip systems. The more slip systems a metal has, the less brittle it is because plastic deformation can occur along many of these slip systems.

Conversely, with fewer slip systems, less plastic deformation can occur, and the metal will be more brittle. For example, HCP (hexagonal close-packed) metals have few active slip systems and are typically brittle.

3. Ceramics

Ceramics are generally brittle due to the difficulty of dislocation motion or slip. There are few slip systems in crystalline ceramics that dislocation is able to move along, which makes deformation difficult and makes the ceramic more brittle.

Ceramic materials generally exhibit ionic bonding. Because of the ions’ electric charge and their repulsion of like-charged ions, slip is further restricted.

How does the material change to brittle?

Materials can be changed to become more brittle or less brittle.

Toughening

When a material has reached the limit of its strength, it usually has the option of either deformation or fracture.

A naturally malleable metal can be made stronger by impeding the mechanisms of plastic deformation but if this is taken to an extreme, fracture becomes the more likely outcome, and the material can become brittle. Improving material toughness is, therefore, a balancing act.

Naturally brittle materials, such as glass, are not difficult to toughen effectively. Most such techniques involve one of two mechanisms: to deflect or absorb the tip of a propagating crack or to create carefully controlled residual stresses so that cracks from certain predictable sources will be forced closed.

The first principle is used in laminated glass where two sheets of glass are separated by an interlayer of polyvinyl butyral.

The polyvinyl butyral, as a viscoelastic polymer, absorbs the growing crack. The second method is used in toughened glass and pre-stressed concrete. A demonstration of glass toughening is provided by Prince Rupert’s Drop.

Brittle polymers can be toughened by using metal particles to initiate crazes when a sample is stressed, a good example being high-impact polystyrene or HIPS. The least brittle structural ceramics are silicon carbide and transformation-toughened zirconia.

A different philosophy is used in composite materials, where brittle glass fibers, for example, are embedded in a ductile matrix such as polyester resin.

When strained, cracks are formed at the glass–matrix interface, but so many are formed that much energy is absorbed and the material is thereby toughened. The same principle is used in creating metal matrix composites.

Effect of pressure

Generally, the brittle strength of a material can be increased by pressure. This happens as an example in the brittle-ductile transition zone at an approximate depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) in the Earth’s crust, at which rock becomes less likely to fracture, and more likely to deform ductilely.

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