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Amorphous Steel
pfdietz writes "Researchers at Oak Ridge have achieved a holy grail of materials science: they have figured out how to produce amorphous (glassy) steel. The material is reported to be twice as hard and have twice the tensile strength of the strongest ultra-high tensile strength steel alloy."
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before the nanotechnologists are able to reproduce this material an the atomic scale and essentially "grow" amorphous-steel items?
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Ok, somebody who understands materials science explain this to me, please: is the amorphous steel's hardness and strength greater because the non-amorphous, crystalline steel breaks easily along a row of atoms, as if along a perforation, while the amorphous steel, lacking such an orderly structure, lacks long runs of bonds along which breaks can be easily made?
Pictorially, is it like this?
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There are several special metals in the Marvel universe that can have a place in the World of Darkness. These metals are usually very hard; much harder than mere steel, and they are not very ablative. They are also very rare, in general. One or two of them have special properties.
Adamantium
Adamantium is the hardest metal known to man, though it has not been made clear how dense it is. One would suspect that its density is roughly the same as that of normal steel, though a Storyteller can rule that it is as heavy as lead or as light as magnesium. At any rate, it would appear that no force on earth is sufficient to break or bend adamantium when it is at a normal temperature. Wolverine has used his adamantium-coated claws in Arctic climes as well as steamy jungles, so there is no reason to suppose that the metal becomes brittle at low temperatures. Judging from the number of times Wolverine's flesh has been roasted or vaporized right off of his skeleton in the comics, with no visible effect on the metal, we must assume that adamantium has a relatively high melting point. In any case, to be nice to Logan, it also seems likely that it has a fairly high specific heat capacity, at least for a metal. It may or may not be one of the magnetic metals- as seen in X-Men 25- because Magneto has enough raw power to reach down and repel protons in the raw, if he wants to.
There is a special process that allows adamantium in ionic (salt) form to be bonded to human bones- as in Wolverine's skeleton- or even human skin- as in Cyber's case. This process was developed by a Japanese scientist and villain called Dark Wind, and stolen (or sold) for the benefit of Department H, a branch of the Canadian Ministry of Defense. The following characters have some sort of connection to the metal, or are actually running around wearing it: Wolverine, Cyber, Dark Wind, Apocalypse, the Professor (not Xavier), Ultron, Lady Deathstrike.
Carbonadium
Carbonadium is a resilient, unstable metal that is much tougher than steel but more flexible than adamantium. It would seem as though it is a difficult and extremely expensive process to make carbonadium, which is probably an alloy of some kind, since there is apparently only one carbonadium synthesizer in the entire world. Carbonadium, like its more resilient counterpart adamantium, would appear to have a high specific heat capacity and melting point.
Carbonadium may or may not have one unique property: it may serve to stabilize a life-force vampire's condition, which would keep the mutant from having to drain the life force of others to survive. This may be a simple fact of Omega Red's condition, rather than something general to life-force vampirism.
Omega Red's tentacles are composed of carbonadium, and it is possible that his skeleton is also laced with the stuff. Other characters with a link to carbonadium include Wolverine, Sabretooth, Maverick, and John Wraith.
Omnium
Omnium is an extremely hard, extremely rigid metal that is likely to be second in resilience only to adamantium. In any case, it would seem that it is even less likely to bend without snapping than that metal. Omnium is not a commonly used or mentioned metal, but it has appeared on rare occasion in Marvel comics.
There was an acolyte of Magneto that had the power to change either himself or another person into an aware omnium statue. Other characters that have been seen using or testing the metal include Penance and the White
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The article was a little thin, so I mosied on down to Wikipedia. I always get confused when I hear glassy, but it appears to be related to the material structure, not any transparency/translucency of the material.
Apparently amorphous metals are considered by some scientists to be a type of liquid rather than a solid. Kind of like glass, if you look at an old house you can see that the windows have slowly flowed downward.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM!
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I used to work in a machine-shop, both in design and in purchasing (for several years).
Reynolds and many others consider 6061 and 6063 to be marine-grade.
They also consider 7075 to be aircraft grade... twice the shear and tensile strength of 6061, but also twice as expensive (cost/lb).
The T-rating ("-T6") is a hardening that it receives after forming, irrelevant to the alloy.
As far as what is spec-ed out, I agree... you should be able to use 6k series in an airplane, for example in a coffie-pot-holder.
Oddly enough, we made a run of those for an airline, and they spec-ed it had to be 7075-T6.
And people wonder why air-fare is so expensive... bozos are making the decisions.
The reverse is true too... we made a run of bicycle crank-axles that were spec-ed to be 7075-T9! Hardly an airplane, but those puppies sure were expensive!
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"glassy", as in "amorphous", as in "non-crystalline". Does NOT mean transparent like window glass. Think obsidian - it's black (or green), opaque, and shatters in totally random directions. That's because it has no crystalline structure and thus no lines or planes of fracture.
This is non-crystalline steel. It's not transparent aluminum - but then, nothing is.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!