A decade before an iceberg shattered the hull plates of the Titanic and half a century before a plague of brittle fractures started sinking Liberty ships during World War II, scientists in the United States and France had devised a novel, and strikingly simple, method for measuring the way metal reacts to impact.

Today, that method, with some upgrades and refinements, remains the standard test used worldwide to judge the impact resistance of metals used in bridge construction, high-pressure boilers, ocean ships, armor plate, nuclear pressure vessels, and other applications. Now it is about to be significantly improved, thanks in large measure to a cooperative research program by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

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