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Osmium is a hard, brittle, blue-gray metal, and the densest stable element—about twice as dense as lead. The density of osmium is slightly greater than that of iridium ; the two are so similar (22.587 versus 22.562 g/cm 3 at 20 °C) that each was at one time considered to be the densest element.
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Osmium is a hard but brittle metal that remains lustrous even at high temperatures. It has a very low compressibility. Correspondingly, its bulk modulus is extremely high, reported between 395 and 462 GPa, which rivals that of diamond (443 GPa). The hardness of osmium is moderately high at 4 GPa.
The ductile failure model of Lynch [17] and Popovich [18] predicted that adsorption of the liquid metal leads to the weakening of atomic bonds and nucleation of dislocations, which move under stress, pile up and work harden the solid. Also, dissolution helps in the nucleation of voids which grow under stress and cause ductile failure.
Embrittlement is used to describe any phenomena where the environment compromises a stressed material's mechanical performance, such as temperature or environmental composition. This is oftentimes undesirable as brittle fracture occurs quicker and can much more easily propagate than ductile fracture, leading to complete failure of the equipment.
Generally, the brittle strength of a material can be increased by pressure. This happens as an example in the brittle–ductile transition zone at an approximate depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in the Earth's crust, at which rock becomes less likely to fracture, and more likely to deform ductilely (see rheid).
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These mechanisms can overlap in the brittle-ductile settings. Deformation mechanisms are commonly characterized as brittle, ductile, and brittle-ductile. The driving mechanism responsible is an interplay between internal (e.g. composition, grain size and lattice-preferred orientation) and external (e.g. temperature and fluid pressure) factors.