Which property of a material allows it to withstand high stress without significant strain?

The property that allows a material to withstand high stress without undergoing significant strain is stiffness. Stiffness refers to the ability of a material to resist deformation under an applied load. When a material is stiff, it means that it can endure substantial forces without bending or stretching excessively.

Materials with high stiffness values will deform very little even when subjected to large loads, which makes them suitable for structural applications where maintaining shape and integrity under stress is critical. This characteristic is often quantified by the modulus of elasticity in materials science, which measures a material's ability to deform elastically (i.e., non-permanently) when stress is applied.

Other options represent different mechanical properties. Toughness refers to a material's ability to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing. Malleability refers to the capacity of a material to deform under compression, allowing it to be shaped or molded. Resilience, on the other hand, is a measure of the material's ability to return to its original shape after deformation. While all these properties are important in evaluating materials for specific applications, stiffness is the main property related to withstanding high stress without significant strain.