Recycled materials promise a cleaner future, but recycled content alone does not necessarily make a product sustainable. At Georgia Tech’s Daedalus Lab, assistant professor Christos Athanasiou and postdoctoral researcher Danqi Sun are working to provide greater certainty to designers and engineers by rethinking how materials are tested for their fracture characteristics.

Their article in Science Advances details a new testing protocol that reduces costs, increases speed and simulates real-world conditions.

Materials shape nearly every part of modern life, from packaging and consumer products to bridges and medical devices. Choosing the right material involves balancing durability, cost, manufacturability and environmental impact. Yet those decisions are not always guided by a clear understanding of how materials age and fail under real-world conditions, especially for recycled materials like plastics.