If you’re serious about engineering the things you build, you need to know the limits of the materials you’re working with. One important way to characterize materials is to test the tensile strength ...

Material testing is important in big industry, where manufacturers must be able to trust the properties of the raw materials they’re using. The rest of us generally take a supplier’s word for it that ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...