eli5 – Watching Olympic weightlifting. Those bars literally bend and bounce with the weights on either side. How don’t those bars ever become brittle and snap (at huge risk to the athlete)?

Question

I understand the bars are metal, which is strong, but metal can eventually get brittle too. Sure the Olympics probably can afford new bars the whole time, but what about old gyms etc.? I’m just amazed how those bars never break and hurt people. Watching that guy do the world record deadline, that bar was like a boomerang shape at points.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Metal can fatigue and sag, but it will not generally snap until after it has become quite bent over and over (think of how you snap a paper clip by bending it back and forth) so it’s unlikely it would snap before someone would notice some serious distortions first