Abstract
The fracture of a bone, or the rupture of a blood vessel can constitute a serious condition which may lead to a grave illness or even paralysis and sudden death. Preceding the break there is a transition region from continuous flow which exhibits for materials of the most varied types of consistencies and conditions danger signals in the form of fatigue, volume dilatancy, work hardening, enbrittlement and cracking up, all of which present frequently an unexpected and even paradoxical appearance.
In many cases there is time during the transition region to take remedial action which prevents breakage to occur and brings the material back to its original state. This will be demonstrated on some industrial materials, and one may expect a similar behaviour for some biological materials particularly under certain pathological conditions. This would be of special interest.
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