Recent content by Wikisteff

Thoroughly agree with Mapes; it's hard to beat steel for the title, particularly in terms of the size of the process zone (think: how big a rip can I make before the whole thing tears apart). I'd be very interested in a refinement of Mapes' fracture toughness-strength chart that shows the...

Well, silicon carbide is decently tough, with a fracture toughness of about 4 MPa/m^.5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracture_toughness) ... that's about 3 to 20 times as tough as concrete. SiC (moissanite) is also one of the harder substances known: at a Mohs hardness of 9.5, it'll scratch...