A transgranular fracture is a

fracture Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displ ...

that follows the edges of lattices in a

granular material A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when grains collide). The constituents that compose gra ...

, ignoring the

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legume ...

s in the individual lattices. This results in a fairly smooth looking fracture with fewer sharp edges than one that follows the changing grains. This can be visualized as several wooden

jigsaw puzzle A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaiced pieces, each of which typically has a portion of a picture. When assembled, the puzzle pieces produce a complete picture. In t ...

pieces with the grains showing, but with each piece having grains running in a different direction. A transgranular fracture follows the grains in the wood, not the edges of the puzzle pieces. This is opposed to an intergranular fracture.

References

Granularity of materials Fracture mechanics {{materials-sci-stub