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Tracking the Cracks

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the broken-news dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Israeli physicists from the Weizmann Institute have used a new approach to study how materials break. In a short news release, brilliantly titled "Breaking news", they explain their new method for analyzing the progression of a forming crack. The news release even says that it could have help engineers predict 'exactly how much pressure the levees protecting New Orleans could withstand before giving way.' This method could be used by engineers and material scientists in a vast variety of applications."

1 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Punny by h+nu+per+lmda · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hope the title was meant to be punny, because a model on cracking is nothing new. There are currently many models that work for crack propagation in composites (of metal, polymers and amorphous materials). Every research groups CLAIMS that their model allows them to gain the best insight, because saying anything else:
    forfeits further research dollars.

    Until the model is explained in further detail and some source code is released, rather than the typical hand-waving, hype and money generating BS, this "breaking news" is nothing but hype.

    -PhD student. Metallurgical Sciences.