Final answer:
The strength of compression refers to a material's capacity to bear compressive forces. Concrete has a high ultimate compressive strength but may experience shear failure. While liquids and solids are hard to compress, certain conditions like deep ocean pressures can lead to measurable compression.
Step-by-step explanation:
The strength of compression is a measure of a material's ability to withstand compressive forces without failure. This property is essential in various engineering and architectural applications, where materials are subjected to loads that try to reduce their size. A key indicator of this strength is the ultimate compressive strength, which is the maximum stress a material can withstand under compression before it breaks or deforms. For example, concrete has a high ultimate compressive strength of 20 × 106 N/m², meaning that concrete blocks are unlikely to break under compression. However, they might chip off due to a much lower ultimate shear strength of 2 × 106 N/m².
Liquids and solids are generally very difficult to compress, which is evident from the fact that even at pressures of about 500 atmospheres, the decrease in volume is not significant. However, some scenarios exemplify bulk compression, such as the creation of industrial-grade diamonds from carbon or the natural compression of water at great ocean depths. These examples highlight the immense forces required to produce noticeable changes in volume for solids and liquids.