Space Forum / Space Flight / December 2005

Off the top of my head, I'd guess that silicon exhibits brittle
behavior: it's stress-strain curve will be a straight, diagonal line
with no plastic deformation, just a sudden break at the end.

I'd bet you could probably produce some nanocrystalline silicon that
exhibited some plastic behavior, but that applies to most materials.
Give a material enough grain boundaries and you can stretch it like
taffy.

How do you mean? I'd expect it's got a lot of empirical data.

Mike Miller, Materials Engineer