Slashdot Mirror
Super Hard Steel
Sub_Dude writes: "Seems the folks at a Dept. of Energy lab have come up with a way to coat steel to make it harder. The process might be interesting to mechanical engineers out there, and because the article mentions nanotechnology, Hemos will like it. The press release is here, and an award for being "one of this year's top 100 technological achievements" is here."
> Like TranspariSteel, from Star Wars.
No, like transparent aluminum, from Star Trek
The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
If that were the case the cost of recycling it would have to be less the cost of mining and refining the bauxite, which it is not. The cost of recycling Aluminum is about 1/20 the cost of producing 'new' metal from bauxite. Thus making it the most cost effective household material for recycling. Also, since savings is in reduced use of electricity, it benefits everyone who has to purchase electricity off the grid to recycle their aluminum.
Annually, the aluminum industry saves enough electricity by recycling to reduce by 60 the overall need for power plants in the US.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
From Mechanical Metallurgy by George E. Deiter 3rd Ed.
-- pg 325. Ch 9-1After that the chapter briefly discusses how the different tests work, and some light derivation including a special case of finding the tensile strength. (Incidently, this conversation is why I provided a link to Powell's collection of Mechanics of Materials texts; I wanted to avoid it.) A link to convert hardnesses for steel into tensile strength. I might remark that given strength is simply a load over an area for a certain event, and any hardness test also uses a load over a slightly more complicated area (with some other considerations) one might readily and correctly assume they can be related. I might further add, that MY contention that strength and hardness are related is not even addressed in any of your definitions. I feel little need to offer anything in the way of proof, but since you seem to require it, this web site might be illuminating. Also any materials, and most mechanical, engineering departments will have a similar poster in their hardness testing labs.
Don't think me cruel, as I don't intend it in this fashion, but I had noticed the ASM site had a section called "Ask ASM" where you can pose questions, and thought it clearly marked. I suppose you could also write your local physics, mechanical, civil, or materials engineering departments as they almost certainly answer all sorts of questions. They are typically given to grad students to answer in math and physics departments.
I'm sorry you didn't see the value in links that I hoped you would find useful. I tried my best to keep everything simple and accurate, I hoped others would find it interesting. But it would seem you have little if any interest in finding answers, which is fine. But if you're not going to seek illumination beyond that of a poor dictionary, for the life of me I can't see why you quibble with mine. The fact is they created a new phase of steel (I took this as an obvious point from the press release, clearly I was in error). If you still believe they did not, you MUST also believe glass and quartz are the same. Which is your perogative. A new phase is better than simply a new alloy, as their figure of 16 GPa certainly shows. As a final token, here is a Iron-Carbon (Steel) phase diagram, note the lack of an amorphous phase (I realize it is quite busy, but it at least shows what steel fundementally is). In closing, you see what everyone else does, what you want to. Maybe this is what I get for picking nits.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Tired of dents in your car's fenders. Now in this super special awesome limeted time offer you can get "Super Hard Steel" for only 19.99. Just spray Super Hard Steel on your cars metal surfaces and instantly your car is super protected and thats a super promise. Look when this ordinary car is car is hit by a shopping cart, ouch, ugly dent now with the same cart and a "Super Hard Steel" treated car the cart just blows up..
Order in the next 10 minuets and we'll throw in a secon can for the same low price that's two cans of "Super Hard Steel" for only 19.99 order now.
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare
You're thinking about aluminum production after the discovery of the electrical refinement process. Before this was developed, the metal was extremely expensive, more expensive than gold on an ounce-by-once basis.
Since that new refining technique has been developed nobody thinks twice about tossing out an item containing pounds of aluminum. Recycling it would be nice, of course, but nobody is going into bankruptcy if they toss out old lawn furniture or the like. Try doing that with an equivalent amount of gold!
It's interesting to note that a similar change may be pending with another metal - I can't remember if it's titanium or platinum. Today the metal is still very expensive, but in a few years it may be as affordable as aluminum today.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
It might be useful to note that it's not only the hardness of the material that's getting the industry to sit up and take notice. While, the material is harder than practically anything out there (there may be exceptions - all comments are welcome, but remember that it did wear down a Silicon Nitride pin), it's the cost that's also appealing. Super Hard Steel, while being a new concept scientifically, is not an exotic material (in the sense that exotic materials are expensive and difficult to prepare) because it's relatively easy to make; it's apparently made from the transformation of steel alloy (more details in the press release about it's manufacture would have been nice - none of this "coaxing mother nature" bullshit). It's extreme hardness and toughness, combined with a low coefficient of friction means that cost savings will also occur over the lifetime of the part because it lasts longer and requires less maintenance.
It's important that if your discovery is to have "real world" (as in commercial/industrial) applications, it needs to be cost-effective (either it saves money spent on existing processes or generates a profit from new processes). In fact, INEEL materials scientist Daniel Branagan is quoted as saying that the research team "purposely used off-the shelf technology to apply the coatings with the idea of increasing the ease of getting this technology out to industry".
P.S. - The article is quoted as saying that it's one of the hardest metallic materials known so any comparisons to diamond are not really applicable given that diamond is actually an allotrope of Carbon, which is a non-metal. Furthermore, while diamond is a strict, tetrahedral crystalline structure, the Super Hard Steel is actually a "non-crystalline metallic glass" (meaning that it has no specific structure, although the article mentions that the coating can be heated to create a stable structure made up of small crystals). So in all fairness, the two can't really be properly compared because they're not the same types of material.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
So, what are your relative fields?
My degree is in Mechanical Engineering. To me, at a glance, Kibo sounds like he knows what he's talking about but should never become a teacher because he's not very good at explaining it.
TechnoGrl seems to avoid saying anything new or explanatory so that nothing she says could be wrong... and somehow it doesn't sound like her field is Material Engineering.
My upshot goes something like this: Hardness and strength (but not toughness) have a very high correlation. However, having something very strong painted onto something weak doesn't make the whole object miraculously very strong - sorta.
Try to pull it apart and it won't make too much difference (depending on paint thinkness) bending it will make more difference, but it's probably still too thin. More importantly, though, it won't be able to form little cracks when you bend it back and forth. So the lifetime of this part, even without having a dramatic effect on the bulk strength of the material in a single test, can be very dramatic over a period of time.
And of COURSE that's vague. I only wrote a paragraph in something people get graduate degrees in forchristsakes.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Dictionary.com might agree with you, almost. But I would consider it to be technology on the scale of a billionth of a meter. So I prefer a more liberal interpretation. Certainly the materials are nanoscale, nanophase, and state of the art. I wonder if you'd feel the same about nanoarchitectured materials?
I am afraid that you are incorrect. Diamonds for examply are incredibly hard but are also extremely brittle and hence are not used in places where structural strength is required.
This is where it gets fun. You're confusing hardness or strength (they ARE interchangable ask ASM or your favorite Mechanics of Materials textbook), and Toughness. Toughness is the ability of a material to resist cracking, or if you prefer how brittle it is. Diamond is most certainly the king of strength, but, as you astutely observed, is brittle. Sillicon Carbide, carbon fiber, as well as glass share this quality. Again, I can't stress this enough, don't take my word for it. Tell me I'm full of shit, goto this website and find out for yourself.
Unfortunately the actual article made no such claims. They did not invent a stronger steel. They merely invented an extremely durable coating which bonds to steel. Sort of like a "super paint" actually.
They did invent a stronger steel. It happens to be a coating, but with a strength of I think 16 GPa, which is about 16 times better than a typical high strength structural steel and in the realm of about theoretical. Considering they believe the coating to be all but free of defects, this actually makes a lot of sence, as it is the defects which start the cracks that limit the strength of a material.
But it's funny, how people are. I prefer a liberal interpretation of nanotechnology, but ridgedly adhere to the indoctrination I was educated under. In anycase it certainly seems the press release was written with a reader like me in mind, and in so far as that was a good choice, it is correct. I would have expected it to have less resistance to chemical corrosion, but material science can be counter intuitive. In anycase I'm sure Powell's has at least a few good books on mechanics of materials if you're into that kinda thing.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
As far as hardness and strength. They harder a material is the stronger it is. The actual relation isn't trivial to derive and depends on things like the tip you use for intentation, qualitatively, it isn't that difficult to grasp so I'll do my best to explain. Strength is the ability of a material to resist plastic deformation. Plastic deformation is when you stretch a material and it won't snap back, as opposed to elastic deformation where it will. Try bending a paper clip, very little at first, it will snap back like you never touched it. Now bend it around. Where you bent it, the bumps and twists, are now harder and resist bending more than the rest of the paper clip and make it look irregular. That's plasitically deformed. It won't ever be like it was unless you remake the paper clip. If you bend it a little more it should get a little bit harder, then stiff and easy to break. That's a qualitative stress-strain curve you can feel. Then same thing happens when you push an indentor into a material, some of it gets pushed out of the way to make room for the indentor, which isn't all that different from bending the paper clip. In fact hardness is so closely related to the strength of a material you can do a surface hardness test to find out what alloy something is made of without destroying it. One of those things. On the other hand, this is a coating, so it's always on the surface of something, and in that sence you're right. Hard coatings typically need less lubrication, experience less fretting (a form of mechanical corrosion), etc. They also mention that it has self-sharpening characteristics. So it might find its way into new anti-armor weapons, or just the sharper image catalog.
Yeah I would say this is front page stuff. Getting a metal to come near the theoretical ideal in strength is pretty impressive. This is at least as front page as anything else up there. A good overview of thermal spray can be found here.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
KITT's had this technology since the 80's.
Figures, Devon got screwed at Patent Office.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Transparent aluminum!
Disclamer: Yes, I know he started Scientology, but I read it when I was a kid before I even knew what Scientology was.
science is a religion
A new Ginsu commerical. The self-sharpening steak knife of the new Millenium. Hosted by O.J. Simpson.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
You replied: "The articles listed seems like some sort of press release."
READ this again, and think about it.
Sometimes the posts just moderate themselves...
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.