Statistical analysis of fracture surfaces: data science at the service of failure analysis

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new engineering technique based on the statistical analysis of the topography of a fracture surface. While this technique follows in the footsteps of fractography, a science developed in the middle of the last century to interpret the shapes created when a part breaks, it pushes back the boundaries. By providing hitherto inaccessible information on the mechanical properties of a material and the conditions of its fracture, it now makes it possible to trace the thread of damage step by step to determine its causes. And so guide the development of safer materials and structures