Can a Hydraulic Press Make a Diamond Shatter?

Diamonds may be hard, but that does not make them indestructible; even with just a light blow from a hammer they can easily be crushed.

People often mistake HARDNESS and TOUGHNESS. Hardness refers to materials' resistance against scratching; toughness measures how well materials stretch or break. Can a hydraulic press create diamonds?

Hardness

Diamonds are famously among the hardest things on Earth. Rated at 10 on Mohs scale of mineral hardness, diamonds are only scratchable by other diamonds or very few other materials - making them perfect for jewelry and other uses where durability is a top priority. But their extreme hardness also makes them very brittle; just one direct hit from a standard hammer could shatter into tiny fragments of dust! Furthermore, placing one into hydraulic press will likely cause it to shatter completely into tiny shards!

This video of a 1.2-carat diamond being crushed under a hydraulic press has gone viral, with over 11 million views on YouTube alone. However, its impact has caused confusion about whether diamonds really are as durable as advertised - to understand this further, one must differentiate between hardness and toughness; hardness refers to how easily mineral surfaces can be scratched while toughness measures their resistance to fracture from forceful impact.

Though diamonds are extremely hard, their fragile chemical bonds allow it to be broken by something as simple as a hammer strike. A diamond's hardness depends on its direction of force rather than magnitude - in most directions diamonds are actually quite fragile and only hard when aligned parallel with their cleavage planes.

Striking a diamond at just the right angle will cause it to shatter into small fragments that can easily be handled with tools such as hammers or other tools. Diamonds have long been valued for their extreme hardness and other desirable properties; therefore, they're frequently employed in industrial abrasives or cutting tools applications.

Though diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance, there are other man-made materials which surpass it in hardness such as tungsten carbide and steel - both possess higher tensile strengths than diamond. Yet even these man-made materials can still be broken with hydraulic press pressure.

Toughness

Diamonds are considered one of the hardest materials on Earth, boasting an Mohs Hardness Scale rating of 10. While diamonds may be difficult to scratch, that doesn't mean they cannot be broken or crushed under pressure - as demonstrated in a YouTube video uploaded to Hydraulic Press channel showing a 1.2 carat diamond being crushed under pressure from a hydraulic press and shattering into small fragments.

Although this experiment can be fun and fascinating, it's essential to remember that diamonds aren't indestructible. Even one blow from a standard hammer could crack it and this is likely due to their lower than claimed tensile strength; people often confuse hardness for toughness but this can be dangerously misleading; hardness refers to materials' ability to resist scratching while toughness refers to durability; though diamond is hard material it doesn't compare with what it claims it will provide.

Diamonds form deep within Earth's mantle when carbon atoms bond through extreme heat and pressure, eventually becoming one of the strongest materials on Earth due to covalent bonding between carbon atoms - one of the strongest forms of atomic bonding. While diamonds may resist scratching well, they still break or shatter under pressure.

An effective way of testing a diamond's toughness is observing its response to uniaxial tensile strain. A diamond's tensile strength can be calculated from its critical bond length; its increase monotonically with increasing strain until stress becomes too great and fractures occur.

At present, only two methods exist for producing artificial diamonds: High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). Both processes employ extreme temperatures and pressures in order to replicate conditions found deep within Earth that facilitate natural diamond growth. While HPHT can create diamonds of gem quality, CVD tends to be better suited for industrial uses.

Cleavage Planes

Hydraulic presses continue to make waves on YouTube, crushing every object they come into contact with - this time with an impressive diamond and powerful press pitted against each other, it is pretty evident who wins this battle of strength!

This video showcases an eye-catching 1.2-carat rough diamond being given to The Hydraulic Press on YouTube for crushing under incredible amounts of pressure, creating an absolutely mesmerizing spectacle as millions of pieces shatter into pieces in mere fractions of seconds. Given corundum isn't much harder than diamond itself, we know The Hydraulic Press can take the task with ease.

Crushing a diamond requires considerable force, so its preparation must be meticulous. Researchers need to first establish its cleavage planes - areas in the crystal where it is more vulnerable to breakage - by inspecting flat surfaces of the crystal with a jeweler's loupe and noting which "light up" when light is cast upon them; not all flat surfaces serve as cleavage planes as some could actually be crystal faces.

Once cleavage planes have been determined, testing their cleavage ability can be accomplished through measuring Miller indices of the crystal. Alternatively, more rigorous mathematical analysis can be conducted with VESTA program (Momma & Izumi 2011 >).

To produce diamonds, they must be subjected to intensely high-pressure and temperature conditions for an extended period of time. A special two-sided top diamond hydraulic press is often employed for this task; as its model has an enormous influence on quality and cost of diamond production. Existing models include steel wire winding type presses, prestressed three column presses and laminated frame presses - although six sided top presses may be suitable due to lower tonnage, lower high-pressure chamber volume capacity and backward technology; advanced countries have since moved over exclusively using two-sided top hydraulic presses for diamond production.

Chemical Composition

There are various YouTube channels dedicated to squishing various items with hydraulic presses for entertainment purposes. While such items as tenderizing mallets, Rubik's Cubes, hockey pucks and bullets may come as no surprise for destruction by 10,000 psi hydraulic press forces; one which may take you by surprise is diamonds!

Reason being, even though diamonds are the hardest natural substance known, they are still breakable by external force and objects of sufficient weight. Any hard object striking against it with sufficient force could shatter it into millions of pieces.

Diamonds are often fragile objects. Their weak cleavage planes and chemical composition make them vulnerable to shocks; moreover, carbon-carbon bonds within a diamond are highly stressed and will disintegrate under intense pressure.

Diamonds can easily fracture when exposed to extreme forces like those produced by hydraulic presses; for this reason they should never be used as weapons or armor as their fragility would shatter upon being struck by sword or shield.

At Sumitomo Electric, scientists were able to successfully create polycrystalline diamonds out of graphite using extreme temperatures and pressure similar to what occurs inside Earth's mantle. To do this, they placed samples of graphite into a multi-anvil apparatus commonly used to produce steel; such machines are only commonly found at research institutions with hydraulic presses for pushing anvils together.

To make the graphite suitable, it had to be formed into the shape of a truncated octahedron or hexa-cubic. Once this shape had been reached, carbon atoms were attached via carbon grafting; after which, its durability was tested using various stress and shock applications such as hydraulic presses.

This lab created diamond was subjected to XRF analysis to establish its molecular structure, and then utilized this knowledge to reconstruct Earth's core where diamonds form at high temperatures and pressures; similar conditions could be replicated using machines such as belt presses, cubic presses or split-sphere presses (BARS).