Particulates may experience dynamic compression loading during materials handling and processing, which in turn can lead to fracture of the particles. In this study, the dynamic fracture behavior of microspherical particles of soda lime glass (SLG), polycrystalline silica, polycrystalline silicon, barium titanate glass (BTG) and yttriumstabilized zirconia (YSZ) was characterized with high speed, in situ X-ray phase-contrast imaging to examine the failure mechanisms in situ for spheroidal particles with diameters (d) from 600 to 2000 pm under dynamic compression. Nanoindentation was used to measure the hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E), and microindentation was used to measure the fracture toughness (T) of the materials. Based on the experimental results, a new pulverization parameter was proposed to predict the failure mechanism of the materials given by: 2 = Hd/TE5/3.The results showed that high P values are associated with comminution failure, low P values are associated with single cracking failure, and intermediate P values reflect failure modes in between these two extremes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.