Cracked Piece of Metal Heals Itself in Experiment That Stuns Scientists

https://www.sciencealert.com/ ^ | 04 December 2023 | DAVID NIELD

[Jonty30]

If they can control this, they can join metals together in new and unthought of ways.

[Steely Tom]

So what’s “cold welding?”

[Jonty30]

When you place two metals together in the vaccuum of space, they just join together. It’s almost like they pass between each other’s atoms.

[algore]

I think I saw this in an Arnie movie, I can’t remember which one, but I think it had AI too

[Mogger]

This needs to be brought into practical use as soon as possible.

With affirmative action and multicultural engineers being hired and other grads with very little knowledge, but great self esteem, poorly designed disasters will be waiting to happen.

But if the metal can heal itself, perhaps the destruction poor number crunching and stupid designs cause can be avoided.

[Firehath]

Cracks in the brain

Would be better

[Spok]

One in the Terminator series. First thing I thought of too.

[Jonty30]

This a pretty good explanation of cold welding in a vaccuum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2nQ8isf55s

[Candor7]

Shezam...just slide the panels together, put the jet fighter in a vacuum, add the juice, and weld the whole thing together,using ultra thin alloys of titanium.....

We get to have our own UFOs!

[Dr. Sivana]

I watched Arnie. While he did work in metal manufacturing, I don't think there was an episode with self-healing metals.

[T.B. Yoits]

[DannyTN]

You don’t want to use it on just any crack.

Something like that could destroy Uranus.

[smokingfrog]

[T.B. Yoits]

This needs to be brought into practical use as soon as possible.

From 2018:
https://www.machinedesign.com/materials/article/21836625/selfhealing-metals-help-fight-corrosion

They're likely working on the infomercial already, where for just three easy payments of $19.99 you can get a frying pan - BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! If you order now you can get a set of knives that will never dull even if you saw a parking meter off a metal post with it.

[Bullish]

Anytime you work metal you’re creating friction and friction causes heat. I imagine stretching a thin piece of metal 200 times a second would create plenty of heat at the nano level. So, friction could cause enough heat to re-weld ( “cold weld”) metal if the metal has tiny ‘healable’ cracks perhaps? Just a guess from a lifetime metal worker.

Interesting.

[Bullish]

>rimshot!<

You’re here all week?

[Jonty30]

According to the video I posted, the thin layer of oxide is what keeps metals from welding together on their own. In space, without the oxide, the metals will weld together on their own.

[Honest Nigerian]

I like the suggested solution you pose.
I was going to remark that platinum is kind of a non-ideal material for most use cases.
Now mercury is another metal that behaves oddly (for a metal) and is a bit toxic as well.

[Montana_Sam]

Calls to mind an aspect of the Hutchinson Effect:
36 min video

Images of a penny that was 'absorbed' into a block of aluminum. One characteristic of the Hutchison Effect is that bars of metal would effectively 'disrupt' in a way that the bar would 'jellify' in the lateral center of the bar, and would separate into two pieces. There are images of brass, aluminum and steel bars thusly disrupted. Another aspect is levitation of objects, caught on video. All in all, quite an odd phenomenon, and not readily reproducible and not well understood.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

According to the video I posted, the thin layer of oxide is what keeps metals from welding together on their own. In space, without the oxide, the metals will weld together on their own.

This has been well known since the first satellites were orbited. Engineers have been having to design around it ever since.