So just like bending a paper clip?

A metallurgical failure analysis with an additional statistical analysis were conducted on a series of paper clips that had undergone torsional cyclic testing and reversed bending testing in order to put to rest the concept that reversed bending of a paper clip is an example of a fatigue failure. The paper clips showed characteristics of cold working and subsequent failure due to ductile overload fracture. Performing a Weibull analysis on a separate batch of ten paper clips confirmed that the failure distribution was characteristic of rapid wear out rather than random failure which is typical of fatigue distribution.