Posted on 02/28/2011 8:06:03 PM PST by Red Badger
Imagine a material that's stronger than steel, but just as versatile as plastic, able to take on a seemingly endless variety of forms. For decades, materials scientists have been trying to come up with just such an ideal substance, one that could be molded into complex shapes with the same ease and low expense as plastic but without sacrificing the strength and durability of metal Now a team led by Jan Schroers, a materials scientist at Yale University has shown that some recently developed bulk metallic glasses(BMGs)-metal alloys that have randomly arranged atoms as opposed to the orderly, crystalline structure found in ordinary metals- can be blow molded like plastics can be blow molded like plastics into complex shapes that can't be achieved using regular metal, yet without sacrificing the strength or durability that metal affords. Their findings are described online in the current issue of the journal nto complex shapes that can't be into complex shapes that can't be achieved using regular metal, yet without sacrificing the strength or durability that metal affords. Their findings are described online in the current issue of the journa Materials Today."These alloys look like ordinary metal but can be blow molded just as cheaply and as easily as...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
In before the “Hello Computer” graphic from ST4.
You made me a life of ashes, I’ll take bulk metallic glasses.
Thanks Red Badger.
Ya’ beat me to it. Hank would’ve been proud.
This stuff sounds like it is no less dense than steel, so it wouldn’t quite be a Rearden metal — but it could possibly be used for applications where only electroplating processes would have worked in the past, especially if shrink-molding is as easy as blow-molding. Being low-melting it might not be usable in internal-combustion engines, which is a pity.
“For decades, materials scientists have been trying to come up with just such an ideal substance...”
Ever since July, 1947, in fact.
What happened in July 1947?......
ISs that you, ABH?
Roswell Incident July 1947
Oh, I was thinking thermo nuclear explosion........
Very cool.
I guess ZZ Top will have to rewrite their song....
I was thinking mithril....
ahahahah - my first thought!
The Army Air Force recovered the wreckage of a UFO made of metal such as this, and has been attempting to ‘reverse engineer’ it ever since.
I wonder if Degaussing would be of benefit?
I have forgotten everything I know about metallurgy.
the stuff of spaceships?
Sorry, no. Who’s ‘ABH’?
Scotty, do you have any transparent aluminum?
mimetic poly-alloy!
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