Malleability
A material's physical ability to deform plastically under compressive stress without cracking, typically tested by hammering or rolling into thin sheets.
Governing formula
Compressive strain tolerance without cracking
SI unit
Qualitative / Quantitative Plastic Strain
In depth
Malleability relies on non-directional metallic bonding where metal cations slide past one another along crystal slip planes without disrupting the delocalized electron sea.
Examples in the real world
Hammering gold into ultra-thin gold leaf foil only a few hundred gold atoms thick.