PSA: How to Stop Your BGE from Cracking

As most of you know, my lab at the university has expertise in fracture mechanics.  Over the years we have worked hard to advance some new theories to help materials scientists and engineers predict when an object or a design subjected to mechanical and even thermal loads fractures.  

I actually use the BGE as an example of thermo-mechanical fractures sometimes when I'm giving lectures to students or talks at conferences.  It's an easy to understand problem.  Gradients in temperature fields give rise to eigenstrains that vary through the thickness, which in turn creates mechanical stresses.  Repeated stresses over time give rise to fatigue.

This is great and everything, but I often get asked, frequently from residents of Georgia "If you're so smart, why don't you come up with a way to stop fracture from happening in the first place?"  This is a good point, I hate to admit.

So I finally broke down and convinced some undergraduates to do some experiments. After a lot of testing I'm happy to report there is a very simple thing you can do to stop your BGE from cracking with repeated use.  I know this is going to seem hard to believe, but it turns out that all you need to do is to: paint it red.  That's right, just pick up some red paint, perhaps from Kamado Joe, apply and never have to worry again!

And, just remember, there are three kinds of people in this world...