Stability in harsh environments due to excellent electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties makes ceramics the materials of choice for numerous applications despite the emergence of newer materials like plastics and composites.¹ However, ceramic materials do face disadvantages, particularly brittleness.

Brittle fracture in ceramics is often attributed to the strong covalent and ionic bonding within a ceramic body. There is still much to learn about brittle fracture on a detailed level, though, and so ceramic brittleness and its catastrophic failure is a frequently researched subject, particularly in loading applications.