Table 1.

A list of material properties describing mechanical failure is shown along with conceptual definitions and common materials.

Material Property	Technical Definition	Conceptual Definition	Common Materials
Strength	Maximum mechanical stress	Greatest load that can be applied at once	High: Metals Low: Plastics
Fracture Toughness	Ability to resist unstable crack growth	Likelihood that the material will shatter when it breaks	High: Soft Plastics Low: Glass
Fatigue Strength	Number of cyclic loads that can be experienced before failure	Failure from damage accumulation over thousands to millions of loading cycles	High: Fiber Composites Low: Ceramics