Today I learned why sausage splits lengthwise

17 Oct, 2026

As a chemical engineering student, I never expected to learn the physics behind why sausages usually split lengthwise.

Sausages are actually very similar to pipes, and I learned about pipes. A sausage has a casing and its content/stuffing inside. A pipe has a wall with a thickness, and it's hollow so fluids can flow inside. They are both cylindrical. In a sense, a sausage is a pipe.

When there is stuff inside a pipe, it pushes on all sides of the inside of the pipe and creates stress. If we nerd out with calculus and physics, we can examine the stress as two components: axial (${\sigma }_a$) and tangential (${\sigma }_t$) stress.

${\sigma }_t=\frac{p·d}{2·s}$ and ${\sigma }_a=\frac{p·d}{4·s}$

Where $p$ is pressure, $d$ is the diameter of the pipe, and $s$ is the thickness of the pipe.

The tangential stress is always larger, and in this case, it is double the axial stress. So, the sausage will split lengthwise.

Sausages were used as an example in Dr. Ugaz's class in Material Design at Texas A&M University. Another article online I found that explains this really well: Why Do Sausages Always Split Lengthwise?

This reminds me of the sausages that I cooked while I was in Scotland. I would throw them into the oven and always found them split lengthwise : (. I like my sausage whole.

#today-I-learned