Ductile
In ductile fracture, extensive plastic deformation (necking) takes place before fracture. The terms "rupture" and "ductile rupture" describe the ultimate failure of ductile materials loaded in tension. The extensive plasticity causes the crack to propagate slowly due to the absorption of a large amount of energy before fracture. Because ductile rupture involves a high degree of plastic deformation, the fracture behavior of a propagating crack as modelled above changes fundamentally. Some of the energy from stress concentrations at the crack tips is dissipated by plastic deformation ahead of the crack as it propagates. The basic steps in ductile fracture are void formation, void coalescence (also known as crack formation), crack propagation, and failure, often resulting in a cup-and-cone shaped failure surface. Voids typically coalesce around precipitates, secondary phases, inclusions, and at grain boundaries in the material. Ductile fracture is typically transgranular and deformation due to dislocation slip can cause the shear lip characteristic of cup and cone fracture. Characteristics
The manner in which a crack propagates through a material gives insight into the mode of fracture. With ductile fracture a crack moves slowly and is accompanied by a large amount of plastic deformation around the crack tip. A ductile crack will usually not propagate unless an increased stress is applied and generally cease propagating when loading is removed. In a ductile material, a crack may progress to a section of the material where stresses are slightly lower and stop due to the blunting effect of plastic deformations at the crack tip.
Though brittle fracture is less common than other types of failure, the impacts to life and property can be more severe. The following notable historic failures were attributed to brittle fracture:

Pressure vessels: Great Molasses Flood in 1919, New Jersey molasses tank failure in 1973
Bridges: King Street Bridge span collapse in 1962, Silver Bridge collapse in 1967, partial failure of the Hoan Bridge in 2000
Ships: Titanic in 1912, Liberty ships during World War II, SS Schenectady in 1943

See also
Notes
References
Further reading
Dieter, G. E. (1988) Mechanical Metallurgy ISBN 0-07-100406-8
A. Garcimartin, A. Guarino, L. Bellon and S. Cilberto (1997) " Statistical Properties of Fracture Precursors ". Physical Review Letters, 79, 3202 (1997)
Callister, Jr., William D. (2002) Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction. ISBN 0-471-13576-3
Peter Rhys Lewis, Colin Gagg, Ken Reynolds, CRC Press (2004), Forensic Materials Engineering: Case Studies. External links
Virtual museum of failed products at http://materials.open.ac.uk/mem/index.html
Fracture and Reconstruction of a Clay Bowl
Ductile fracture