Spaghetti Fracture Experiment

The group contributed to the UNIQ summer school again this year and we are glad that students could visit in person with ~20 attending for the Materials residential course. Angus gave a lecture on statistics of fracture and fatigue. The lecture including a simple fracture experiment you could do at home, but linked to small scale fatigue testing that our fatigue grouplet are developing (currently Jicheng, Rob, and Laz).  The worksheet below gives an idea of what the lecture covered and describes a simple experiment you could run for yourself at home.  Videos of an on-line version given during the pandemic are here.

Brad and Rob supervised a hands-on lab session on tensile testing of various metals and alloys, which led into a good discussion of materials properties and selecting the right material for specific jobs. Working in small teams the students also put together posters and talks on areas of materials science that they researched including light weighting of cars, imaging dislocations in an electron microscope, lithium ion batteries and photovoltaic systems.  Impressive what they got through in such a short time.

https://twitter.com/OMG_Oxford/status/1547184028234776577?s=20&t=KETWbvFcgOFAFCBiSGJ3Qg