Posted on 05/12/2011 5:31:38 PM PDT by allmost
metallic glass is an ideal material for everything from cell-phone cases to aircraft parts. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a new technique that allows them to make metallic-glass parts utilizing the same inexpensive processes used to produce plastic parts. With this new method, they can heat a piece of metallic glass at a rate of a million degrees per second and then mold it into any shape in just a few milliseconds.
"We've redefined how you process metals," says William Johnson, the Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Engineering and Applied Science. "This is a paradigm shift in metallurgy." Johnson leads a team of researchers who are publishing their findings in the May 13 issue of the journal Science.
"We've taken the economics of plastic manufacturing and applied it to a metal with superior engineering properties," he says. "We end up with inexpensive, high-performance, precision net-shape parts made in the same way plastic parts are made—but made of a metal that's 20 times stronger and stiffer than plastic." A net-shape part is a part that has acquired its final shape.
Metallic glasses, which were first discovered at Caltech in 1960 and later produced in bulk form by Johnson's group in the early 1990s, are not transparent like window glass. Rather, they are metals with the disordered atomic structure of glass. While common glasses are generally strong, hard, and resistant to permanent deformation, they tend to easily crack or shatter. Metals tend to be tough materials that resist cracking and brittle fracture—but they have limited strength. Metallic glasses, Johnson says, have an exceptional combination of both the strength associated with glass and the toughness of metals.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
Thank God for Scotty!
Beat me to it.
Think metallic recording tape
Wow...and thanks for posting.
I don’t get it.
Isnt’ this was work hardened copper is? metal with no crystal structure?
I have some experience with copper. It is too soft. Experience it your self with a hammer(or dedicated hand) against a piece of it.
you are missing the point.
metalic glass, get it?
It must be “REARDEN STEEL”, Who is John Galt?
New Metallic Glass Beats Steel as the Toughest, Strongest Material Yet
Now if they can figure out how to "print" with it, like they can now do with plastics, they can create arbitrarily complex items with superior strength and durability.
This is tricky though, as the glass material must be heated and cooled extremely fast. The first article I read about it they were limited to very small sizes, because of the time to transfer and remove heat. This vase I belive was entirely printed, and then heated altogether.
However, if it is done tiny layer by tiny layer, it might be feasible to heat up a layer and cool it down again fast enough.
I wonder if you could make a submarine USV with this, and what acoustic properties it would have.
Just give them a week or 6 and they’ll figure it out.
This does seem like a breakthrough.
It doesn’t say how cheaply this could be done, though. It could be outrageously expensive to superheat the metallic glass in order to mold it into an ipad casing.
I believe John P. Craven theorized this back in the 70’s. I don't know how for he got with it.
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