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The Cracks Section Intro:

What is Fracture Mechanics and why do you care?


Fracture Mechanics is all about figuring out how cracks think: where are they going to pop up next, are they going to grow or just hang out where they are?

How often do you think about cracks? Never, right. Except when you're trying not to step on cracks in the sidewalk. But something made that sidewalk crack. And we'd like to know what that is.

People have used computers to help them understand and predict cracking. We'll see more about that later in this section.

What do engineers have to know about cracking? We'll see that in this section too.


Watch the penny-shaped crack in the
middle of the box grow under tension
(the arrows are pulling on it).

animation courtesy of David Chen (#).


In the Cracks section you will find info on:




Are there cracks in your hometown?




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