The ductile/brittle transition provides the critical test for materials failure theory

It is reasoned that any materials failure theory that claims generality must give full account of ductile versus brittle failure behaviour. Any such proposed theory especially must admit the capability to generate the ductile/brittle transition. A derivation of the failure surface orientations from a particular isotropic materials failure theory reveals that uniaxial tension has its ductile/brittle transition atT /C  = 1/2, whereT andC are the uniaxial strengths. Between this information and the corresponding ductile/brittle transition in uniaxial compression it becomes possible to derive the functional form for the fully three-dimensional ductile/brittle transition. These same general steps of verification must be fulfilled for any other candidate general failure theory.