Cleavage Fracture

Cleavage is a fracture mechanism that is found in stronger metal and occurs at lower temperatures. Cleavage can also be associated or found when failure occurs at high rates of energy input. In cleavage fracture, the fracturing process is occurring along selected atomic planes, i.e., the cleavage planes, within the individual metal grains.

Photograph A shows an example of cleavage fracture in a scanning electron micrograph at a magnification of 2000x.

Photograph A Scanning electron micrograph
 showing cleavage fracture in steel at a
magnification of 2000x.