Posted on 12/24/2015 6:59:53 AM PST by BenLurkin
The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to improve fuel efficiency, as well as in mobile electronics and biomedical devices.
To create the super-strong but lightweight metal, the team found a new way to disperse and stabilize nanoparticles in molten metals. They also developed a scalable manufacturing method that could pave the way for more high-performance lightweight metals. The research was published today in Nature.
...
Structural metals are load-bearing metals; they are used in buildings and vehicles. Magnesium, at just two-thirds the density of aluminum, is the lightest structural metal. Silicon carbide is an ultra-hard ceramic commonly used in industrial cutting blades. The researchers' technique of infusing a large number of silicon carbide particles smaller than 100 nanometers into magnesium added significant strength, stiffness, plasticity and durability under high temperatures.
The researchers' new silicon carbide-infused magnesium demonstrated record levels of specific strength—how much weight a material can withstand before breaking-and specific modulus-the material's stiffness-to-weight ratio. It also showed superior stability at high temperatures.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
We either have a functional Artificial Intelligence machine churning out discoveries, or we really did find a UFO in Roswell.
Rearden?
Colonel Philip Corso and transistors and more.... might be true. I dunno.
I bet it burns real well.
Probably inflexible, too.
Didn’t they have transparent aluminum in a Star Trek movie? I bet it would be lightweight.
There is always something new under the sun. A few years ago it was flash Bainite.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2732798/posts
Wow! This stuff could really shave some weight off my EDC.
Is 3D printing involved in this? Just idle curiosity.
Good luck machining this stuff...
Nano-tech?
Unless we find a lot more magnesium there is no way this stuff will be incorporated into car construction. I’ll let the materials experts in the forum comment more.
I know. The other factor is: how much does it cost to produce?
A lot of things that sound great go absolutely nowhere because they are impractical in important ways.
Nano-technology is very cutting edge. I asked if 3d printing is somehow involved. I suspect that dovetailing parts will be a revolutionary use of 3d printing, but the thought of having them printed micorscopically had not occured to me before.
“The other factor is: how much does it cost to produce?”
Sheer speculation but ...
Once a 3d printer mills out microscopic parts that can dovetail, then it’s merely a matter of having an automated assembly system — or even a hit-or-miss assembly system that filters out parts not yet bonded. Small, non-linked parts could filter down to be reloaded into the hit-or-miss light compacting system.
Come to think of it, dovetailed microscopic parts would fall from the 3d printer in a uniform way. They could be guided down to dovetail automatically like a jigsaw puzzle.
Lemme guess. This stuff was discovered in 1947 in New Mexico and was recently released from an Ohio Air Force base laboratory.
Or maybe you can machine it, but it takes diamond-tipped tools to do it. I bet there are multiple ways to skin this cat.
It occurs to me, though, magnesium is expensive. What if they tried a similar process with aluminum?
Just use something harder than Silicon Carbide nanoparticles.
How about neutron matter? :)
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