The atoms that comprise a metal are tightly bound to one another by the metallic bond, as explained in Metal Basics. But if enough force is applied, these atoms are able to slip into a new position.

Let's take a look at a paper clip. A typical paper clip is made up of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of iron. These atoms are tightly packed and in a crystalline structure, a regular arrangement ...

“In this work, a comprehensive study on crystal structure and chemical bonding properties of CrB 2 was conducted using a combinatorial of theoretical calculations and experimental validations.