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Diamond-coated Steel

Posted by michael on from the girl's-best-friend dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Dutch chemist has successfully coated steel with a layer of diamond, opening the possibility for insanely strong tools that almost never wear out -- not to mention armor tough as, well, diamond-coated nails. From Science Blog."

13 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Tools? by PD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about engine parts? They might make an engine that would run for a half million miles with normal oil changes.

    --
    If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
    1. Re:Tools? by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "How about engine parts? They might make an engine that would run for a half million miles with normal oil changes."

      Yeah, I'm sure the car industry will hop all over the ability to provide cars that last longer. ;)

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:Tools? by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They do... typically deisel engines can last up to and over a million miles with typical (and scheduled) maintainance. Take care of your car's engine and you might get more than a lifetime's worth of use out of it, too.

      I'm more interested in the bonding issue. If heat can effect the bonding (because steel and diamond have very different thermal expansion coefficients), then how useful would this really be for, say, cutting tools?

      Also, I can't see armor plating as being all that impressive. diamond coated steel might have excellent wear characteristics, but since the layer is just atoms thick (I'm assuming, article didn't say... maye you could build it up with repeated coatings?) it wouldn't offer much to resist bending or puncture... thus not being a big improvement for armor. Diamond is also brittle, meaning it'll be easy to crack if you bend or chip it.

      Heat transfer properties, however, are very interesting. If they can build up layers, you could start with a thin wire forms and make diamond heat sinks... and diamond is a very good heat conductor. (based on the process they describe to make it, doesn't sound too expensive either... heating up hydrogen and methane gas? Pfft!)
      =Smidge=

    3. Re:Tools? by Tony+Tastey · · Score: 3, Informative
      I'm more interested in the bonding issue. If heat can effect the bonding (because steel and diamond have very different thermal expansion coefficients), then how useful would this really be for, say, cutting tools?

      well, they did mention that the initial use of chromium nitride was discarded specifically for that problem. they go on to mention that a surface treatment of boron causes the expansion coefficient to be much more similar to that of diamond, and that the effect fades as you get deeper down into the steel.

    4. Re:Tools? by DarthWiggle · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oooo, now a woman can buy me a new car to propose instead of me buying a damn ring... Finally a way to get THEM to do some of the proposing work without sticking us with the awkward decision of whether to wear an engagement ring.

  2. armor? by isj · · Score: 3, Funny
    ... not to mention armor tough as, well, diamond-coated nails

    And 2 days after that the first diamond-tipped projectiles will be available.

    1. Re:armor? by maxume · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you are in the business of 'stopping' something, you wouldn't really want diamond coated projectiles. When you fire a projectile at something, you want the energy of the projectile transferred to the object you are firing at. This means that you generally want your projectile to expand at impact. This also has the side effect of causing greater damage to the target, which is also sometimes an objective. A diamond coated projectile is going to tend to just pass on through, which is counter to both of the objectives.

      I guess there might be some applications as far as armor piercing goes, but that is generally done by increasing caliber, which pretty much just adds energy to the projectile, hence its increased stopping power.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:armor? by GigsVT · · Score: 4, Informative

      For armor piercing, lately the goal has been to keep the caliber down, and increase mass and/or hardness with depleted uranium or tungsten, which are very dense and harder than lead.

      In the civilian area, teflon tipped bullets (so-called cop-killer) made a big splash a while back, but it was mostly anti-gun hype, they were designed for law enforcement use, and never available to the public. They were designed to penetrate things like car doors, not kevlar.

      The teflon was actually mostly to prevent excess wear on the barrel of the gun, since the bullet was made almost entirely from brass. No cop has ever been killed by the bullets so named (As far as anyone can tell). I'd imagine a diamond coated bullet would tear up a barrel in short order, and would be totally impractical.

      An interesting factoid regarding expansion: hollow and soft tipped bullets are mostly banned in engagements of war by the Hague Peace Conferences, which the US didn't technically sign on to, but they follow this part anyway. The Geneva convention also bans "weapons that cause superfluous injury". I guess the point of war is to maim, not to kill.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  3. Fuel cell application? by spumoni_fettuccini · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know one of the issues was storage. Store it cold/under extreme pressure [while allowing more hydrogen] a very thick walled tank is needed which adds serious weight. If it was stored in a thinner walled tank the amount of hydrogen capacity was cut down to a point of not really being feasible as a fuel alternative. Seems like this might help.

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    -- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
    1. Re:Fuel cell application? by adolf · · Score: 3, Informative

      One issue:

      Diamonds aren't particularly strong; the only meaningful industrial aspect of them is that they're very, very hard.

      Hardness != strength.

      A diamond-coated fuel cell, I might surmise, would perform about as well at the application as the same fuel cell would without diamonds.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
  4. Images by Pall+Agamemnides · · Score: 5, Informative

    This page has highly-magnified images of what this process does to steel. Here are direct links to the images:

    Not wanted: graphite on tool steel
    Wanted : a good-adhering diamond layer on tool steel with an intermediate layer of chromium nitride

  5. Heh.. Armor indeed! by Randolpho · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anyone else have late-teen AD&D flashbacks? You know... doing everything you could to finagle your DM into letting you have that diamond armor that lets you cast spells but with an AC of like -10?

    What, just me? Come on, there must be at least *one* other munchkin on slashdot! Admit it... you twinked out when you were a kid! We all did. It's ok, you're among friends! We won't judge you.

    --
    "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
    -Marilyn Manson
  6. Cool by mindstrm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

    Finally, a nice, heavy frying pan that won't scratch.