Impact Fracture

What Does Impact Fracture Mean?

An impact fracture is a form of failure where a metal separates into fragments due to a stress applied at a temperature below the metal's melting point. Impact fractures are due to track formation and propagation.

Impact fractures can be classified either as ductile or brittle depending on the elongation pattern that is present. A ductile fracture is characterized by appreciable, progressive deformation and slow crack propagation, while a brittle fracture is characterized by immediate deformation and fast crack propagation.

Corrosionpedia Explains Impact Fracture

Tests such as the formalized Charpy and Izod tests are used to measure the impact energy required to fracture a given specimen. The specimen is mounted with a hammer on a pendulum. The energy is determined by recording the potential energy variable based on the height of the pendulum. This energy is referred to as the notch energy, which is a measure of the energy absorbed when a given specimen is fractured.