Mountain gorillas, the largest extant primates, subsist almost entirely on plant matter. Moreover, their diet includes a substantial amount of structural material, such as bark and stems, which other primates tend to avoid. Accordingly, the robust masticatory apparatus of gorillas may be adaptive to this presumably tough diet; however, quantitative information on this subject is lacking. In thi...

Results of experimental investigation carried out to study the effects of addition of natural san fibres on the fracture toughness and impact strength of high-volume fly ash concrete are presented in this paper. San fibres belong to the category of ‘Natural Bast Fibres’, also known as ‘Sunn Hemp’. Its scientific (botanical) name is Crotalaria Juncea. It is mostly grown in the Indian Sub-Contine...

The quest for both strength and toughness is perpetual in advanced material design; unfortunately, these two mechanical properties are generally mutually exclusive. So far there exists only limited success of attaining both strength and toughness, which often needs material-specific, complicated, or expensive synthesis processes and thus can hardly be applicable to other materials. A general me...

In this investigation ‚the fracture toughness of A356 containing15%SiC composite was studied. Al/SiC composites have been considered because of their mechanical and erosion properties .Low fracture toughness in Al/SiC as compared with Aluminium alloys is one of its disadvantage. In this study at first A356 alloy was melted in a smelting electrical furnace then poured into the mould. A356-15% Si...

Fracture toughness is an important property that characterizes a material’s brittleness or resistance to fracture. Although some fracture toughness test methods have been refined and even standardized, many researchers have continued to use the Vickers indentation crack length method as an expedient. In this paper, Vickers indentation fracture resistance data for Standard Reference Material SRM...

Strength and toughness are two mechanical properties that are generally mutually exclusive but highly sought-after in the design of advanced composite materials. There has only been limited progress in achieving both high strength and toughness in composite materials. However, the fundamental underlying mechanics remain largely unexplored, especially at the nanoscale. Inspired by the lamellar s...

The structural reliability of many brittle materials such as structural ceramics relies on the occurrence of intergranular, as opposed to transgranular, fracture in order to induce toughening by grain bridging. For a constant grain boundary strength and grain boundary toughness, the current work examines the role of grain strength, grain toughness, and grain angle in promoting intergranular fra...

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM The fabrication of zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) dental prosthetic substructures requires an extended sintering process (8 to 10 hours) in a conventional oven. Microwave sintering is a shorter process (2 hours) than conventional sintering. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to compare the fracture toughness of 3 mol % Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 sintered in a conventional or micro...

Fatigue precracked specimens of three titanium alloys (6Al-4V, ELI, and Timetal 5111) were dynamically loaded in a drop weight tower system while the dynamic fracture toughness was inferred using Coherent Gradient Sensing, crack opening displacement, or strain gage methods. A comparison of the initiation toughness of the three materials as a function of loading rate and specimen thickness is made.