Ceramics are generally hard and brittle because of the type of bonds that hold the atoms together in the material. Ceramics are made up of covalent, ionic, or both types of bonds.
Covalent bonds are directional, which means that they form bonds only in specific directions and in a sense are more ordered/selective. So when a force is applied, the bonds will try very hard to resist deformation. As a result of this, the material is usually tough (toughness being defined as the ability of a material to absorb energy without rupture), but brittle when that threshold is passed.
Although ionic bonds are nondirectional in nature (meaning they can form bonds in multiple directions) , we need to realize that we are dealing with charged particles that become unstable when they are placed under a force. You could almost think of it as bringing like charges closer together when a strong enough force is applied to the material, so that they repel each other.
Hope that helps some, I think someone might want to expand on directional/nondirectional nature of bonds...
Answer by:Engr.Muhammad Abubakar Qureshi
Engr.Mubashir
Engr.Zeeshan Khalid
Department of Metallrgical and Materials Engineering
University of Engineering and Technology Lahore
They are brittle because of covalent bonds present in them.As we know that bonded atoms have some distance between them called bond distance,1 atom wants to go to opposite side of the other atom,so compressive stress dont allow to minimize bond distance,and if we apply tensile stress the layers of atoms slides on one another the come in front of same charges and repelled thats why they are broken quickly and show brittleness.
pores in brittle ceramics are regions where stresses concentrates when stresses reach a critical value a crack forms and propagates,since there is no longer absoroption of energy as a result crack propagates.
ceramics was made from talck, its atoms are uncompressed
Tensile strength annealed 207
The tensile strength of concrete is 10% of it's compressive strength.
Tensile strength is one of the basic and important properties of the concrete. The concrete is not usually expected to resist the direct tension because of its low tensile strength and brittle nature. However, the determination of tensile strength of concrete is necessary to determine the load at which the concrete members may crack. The cracking is a form of tension failure.
Tensile strength of Fe410Wa is 410 Mpa Min
tensile strength of astm A672Gr.55
Its to do with tension, it doesn't take much strength to break it
There are thousands grades of low carbon steel in the world. The properties (tensile strength) depends of a lot of parameters such as product type, heat treatment, micro-alloying, dimensions of products, etc. Max possible tensile strength for low carbon steel is 1200 - 1400 MPa.
no iron has any tensile strength
Tensile strength annealed 207
The tensile strength of concrete is 10% of it's compressive strength.
Tensile strength is one of the basic and important properties of the concrete. The concrete is not usually expected to resist the direct tension because of its low tensile strength and brittle nature. However, the determination of tensile strength of concrete is necessary to determine the load at which the concrete members may crack. The cracking is a form of tension failure.
Tensile strength of Fe410Wa is 410 Mpa Min
tensile strength of astm A672Gr.55
Wood actually has an extremely low tensile strength, especially when compared to almost any other building material.
No, because you can pull them apart. Materials like steel, that cannot easily be pulled apart, have a high tensile strength. The tensile strength of a material is the maximum amount of tensile stress that it can be subjected to before failure. Having what can I think can best be described as a rubbery consistency, gummi worms (the word gummi comes from the German for 'rubber') can be easily pulled apart by hand and therefore have a very low tensile strength.
Liquids do not have tensile strength. The equivalent property is viscosity.
Tensile strength was discovered by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 1800s.