Eli5: Strong yet brittle?

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Some materials are considered very strong, yet they are also very brittle. To me this sounds a bit counterintuitive so please explain to me how a material like carbon fiber for example, is considered strong but yet breaks easily.

In: Engineering

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s common to think of strong and brittle as opposites, but they are not.

Brittle doesn’t mean it “breaks easily”. Brittle just means that when you put enough force to exceed the strength of a material, the material breaks instead of bending.

The opposite of brittle is flexible or malleable.

Glass is brittle but weak. Carbon fiber is brittle but incredibly strong — 5 times stronger than steel by weight.

Tin is a metal, it is malleable but weak. Steel is malleable but strong.

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