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New Metal That's Full of Holes

Posted by timothy on from the yeah-right dept.

anoopsinha writes "Wired reports: 'Caltech researchers have made a metallic glass-based foam that is stronger than traditional metal alloys, providing industry with a revolutionary lightweight material.' Currently the applications envisioned for metallic foams are in automobile and aircraft crumple zones, which absorb the impact of collisions, and in artificial bone. Some imagine using the foam to create structures in space."

5 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. foam steel by dpilot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In my high school years, (early 70s) my dream was to set up an orbiting factory making foam steel, flat (radial gradient density glass) lenses, and hollow ball bearings. Of course bubbloy apparently doesn't need to be manufactured in zero G, and my (or anyone else's) factory isn't up there.

    IIWIC, (If I Were In Charge) I'd declare a tax holiday on 50+ mile content in order to promote greater space access. I might exclude satellite communications relays, since that industry is already well developed and I'm trying to foster new development. OTOH maybe not, since more development opportunities might arise.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  2. Not as cool as Aerogel by Tom7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Aerogel is 99.8% holes. Check out the photos of a thin sheet insulating crayons from a blowtorch!

    1. Re:Not as cool as Aerogel by M1FCJ · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Everything can be cheap as hell as long as it is manufactured in large enough quantitites.

      IC's are not easy things to produce but they are cheap enough to put in anything, including 50p digital watches.

      The shuttle tiles aren't cheap because they are not manufactured in a line, in huge quantities. Once you start producing in those quantities, you tend to solve any problem you encounter. Soon enough the initial cost is so low compared to the quantities you manufacture, the total cost of an individual product gets dirt cheap. At this stage the only thing that limits the price is profitibility.

      There are quite a lot of hard-to-produce technologies in large quantities. Lasers deemed to be impossible and very expensive to generate for a long time. When I was a child the articles I read were referring to rubies! Now I have CD-ROM players/writers all around me using miliwatt lasers. Coool!

      Not only that, a CPU is not easy to design, not easy to produce but I can still buy a fast enough Athlon under 50 pounds.

      Total material cost of a typical car is 50 pounds for the metal, 200 pounds for the energy spent. The average cost of a new car in England is around 10k pounds.

      It's all about market drive.

  3. Liquidmetal?!?! Awesome! by MarkGriz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Indeed, bubbloy will be part of the product line of Liquidmetal Technologies, which is famous for adding spring to golf clubs and tennis rackets, but also develops material

    --
    Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
  4. Closed cell foam in a vacuum by PhilHibbs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With a closed-cell foam, I'd imagine that air pressue becomes relevant. If the cells are full of air, what would exposing it to vacuum do? Likewise, if it's manufactured in a vacuum, would the cells be empty, or would they contain gasses that are a by-product of the manufacturing process? "Make it in the medium that it is to be used" is an obvious answer, but what if it's used to make the walls of a space structure? The outer cells would be exposed to vacuum, the inner cells to atmospheric pressure.