Slashdot Mirror
Material Tougher Than Diamond Developed
sporkme has handed us a link to a New Scientist article. The piece outlines the development of a new substance reported to be stiffer than diamond. A team of scientists from Washington, Wisconsin, and Germany combined the ceramic barium titanate and white-hot molten tin with an ultrasonic probe. The new material was, in some tests, almost 10x more resistant to bending than diamond. Composite materials researcher Mark Spearing of Southampton University comments on the result: "The material's stiffness results from the properties of the barium titanate pieces, Spearing says. As the material cools, its crystal structure changes, causing its volume to expand. 'Because they are held inside the tin matrix, strain builds up inside the barium titanate,' Spearing explains, 'at a particular temperature that energy is released to oppose a bending force.'"
Stronger than adamantium?!?!?
:wq
"Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" What are they going name this new SuperMaterial??
Sorry, I couldn't resist
No words of wisedom here.
Diamond is the hardest metal known the man!
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
Will this material be light enough for future space exploration, such as space stations and colony materials? Or is the cost associated with making it too prohibitive? How about the melting temperature/pressure resistance for deep earth exploration?
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
"Stiffer" than diamond???
I am anarch of all I survey.
I love them almost as much as dupes. :) Material Tougher Than Diamond Developed...(in some tests), like say: "The tests were carried out at a variety of temperatures. Between 58C and 59C the samples became stiffer than diamond."
Not to knock the experiment though, it seems interesting, and I'm sure there are all sorts of new exotic materials on the horizon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness : Toughness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiffness : Stiffness
I can't wait to get that spam...
Diamond is the best conductor of heat known. Given it's crystlian structure I wonder what it's thermal properites are or even it's electrical conductivity? Even if it's expensive it could be useful in applications like computer chips.
Toughness is a measure of the amount of energy necessary to break a material. Hardness is a measure of the amount of pressure required to deform it. The two are not the same. In fact, diamond is not a particularly tough material -- which is one reason why folks are discouraged from wearing diamond jewelry when, say, rock climbing. It's easy to fracture a diamond by bashing it against something even moderately hard -- even though no mineral is harder than the diamond, good ol' granite is much tougher.
They'll call it Viagranite!
Try again. Chuck Norris is the toughest material on earth, and he just snapped it in two using a karate chop.
There's so many ways to measure the qualities of a material, I don't think anybody would be surprised to know steel is more than 7 times denser than water. But some people would be amazed to find Mercury is almost twice as dense as steel.
This, "resistant to bending" terminology seems like a real stretch of imagination to me. When do we, as average people ever consider the force involved in -bending- a diamond? It really doesn't sound like a practical thought experiment, and therefore doesn't sound even mildly interesting.
Spider's Silk is 'stronger' than steel - we've all heard. But there's about 1000 reasons you can't build a ship, or a building or even a walking-cane out of spider's silk.
This just sounds like bad hype to me ; what I want to know, and what I think everybody wants to know is - will you be able to CUT THE DIAMOND with this material. Diamonds have been the upper-limit of our prowess with cutting-wheels ; do you have a better material for grinding and cutting? Don't confuse the issue.
Unfortunately I couldn't read the article (slashdotted? what the hell) so I'm going based on the write-up available. don't hate me if the article answers my question.
---
hate me? nahhh
Ace
These go up to 11. [/spinal tap]
What is mankind really? Well, it's just two words put together Mank, and ind.
can I get some of this with three month's salary and still feel underwhelmed?
What's that thing, like 2 karats? Doesn't look like you could do much with it....
Isn't there a carbon nanotube type molecule that's tougher than diamond? I've read about it but I forget the name of it.
Then again it's all just carbon anyway.
Ah ha! Found it... http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7926
"I suppooooose it could be a bit of pre-animate matter caught in a matrix..."
Tin Barium Titanate is forever? (at a very specific temperature)
Is it also a girl's best friend?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
What's on your other window?
/. editors actually took any science/engineering classes?! Mat Sci 101?!
Seriously, this is the website for nerds?! For god sake, you would think they'd know the difference between being stiff and being "tough." Did any of you
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Article title says material is "tougher" than diamond. Article actually says material is "stiffer" than diamond. That's a completely different material property. Can we please get stuff like that right?
Finally! A material that can challenge ... Iron Man!
:)
Or not.
Time for that space elevator.
Looks pretty soft actually.
Software patents delenda est.
Nope, because despite sensationalist Slashdot headings, this material isn't harder than diamond. In some tests, it is stiffer. More difficult to bend, not more difficult to scratch.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
There goes my joke that I had something harder to bend than a diamond.
I fear for your wife.
I'll bet that giving one of these will not get anyone laid though
Tolerance does not tolerate intolerance, or hypocrisy.
Well duh. They're still alive, aren't they?
Stiffness is how much something flexes when you apply force (or pressure which is force per unit area). If it can bend back again this gets called the modulus of elasticity. If you plot pressure against the amount the thing changes shape you get a line for a lot of materials to start with - and the slope of this line is the modulus of elasticity - if you let it go at any point on the line it will spring back into it's original shape. If you keep on applying pressure eventually it will bend out of shape permanantly and later break, and the pressure where this happens is the strength. If you want to work out how tough something is that will be the amount of energy it can absorb before it breaks - if you plot pressure (stress) against the amount it deforms (strain) and take the area under the curve you get that energy. Stuff that stretches a lot before it breaks is tough unless it has a really low strength - and high strength stuff that doesn't stretch much (like glass) is not tough.
Impossible. My stiffy is much firmer.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
so when will transparent aluminum be invented? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_aluminum
"The piece outlines the development of a new substance reported to be stiffer than diamond." Let the Penis jokes commence!!!
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
Diamond is the hardest material known, but many other materials have higher tensile strength, elasicity, etc. You can shatter a diamond pretty easily, which is why diamond cutters have to be so well-trained.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
(last time I checked)
so what else is new.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
How much intelligence does it take to bite off the head of live chickens at marketplaces?
Both geek and nerd have been used as negative labels for socially awkward people, and both geek and nerd have been partly retaken by the "socially awkward people" as positive labels for people with a lot of knowledge outside mainstream (or what used to be mainstream) interest.
Diamond, whether natural or synthetic, is not the hardest known material. Aggregated diamond nanorods are 1.11 times harder than diamond, as discussed here in 2005. And Acetylene polyyne is 40 times harder than diamond. See here
Scroogle
Barium titanate is a structure called a spinel. It has oxygen ions packed in a face-centred cubic structure, with the barium and Titanium ions stuck on the holes between. Above a certain temperature, spinels are cubic. however, at lower temperatures, the structure can reduce its energy by breaking symmetry and squashing a bit down one of the cubic axes, becoming orthorhombic. This compression is not huge, but it is a lot bigger than the typical stretchings you get due to thermal expansion or mechanical stress.
Stick the spinel structure into a tin matrix and cool it. If you are ingenious about your choice of tin matrix, then the stress on the tin can actually get the spinel to change its shape in a way that opposes the bending, rather than going with it as you might expect. Tin is funny stuff - it also has a change in crystal structure on cooling from cubic to hexagonal (though at a much lower temperature) so I guess it is somehow squeezing the spinel in some anisotropic fashion and triggering the phase change.
This is ingenious stuff but it isn't really a high stiffness in the normal sense, any more then the compound pendulums you can somtimes find in grandfather clocks have a very low thermal expansion coefficient. Those have brass and steel rods which all have expansion coefficients, but they are put together in a way that makes the stotal expansion zero. Supposing you had a piezo crystal, with attached electronics that applied a voltage causing it to resist any force put upon it. You could make this infinitely stiff depending on your level of control, or even have it push pack on what is pressing on it.
So, back to your original question. It is heavy, and it only demonstrates the stiffness over a limited range. Bulk material stiffness is not usually important - you can make stiff structures like a cage of tubes by design. However, if you wanted to make some structure appear perfectly stiff, then some active control like the hypothetical piezo stuff I described earlier would probably be lighter and better. I would love to know what this ingenious stuff is for, but I don't think it is for space.
From the west end of London. My dad said my uncle was a real diamond, he was well 'ard. His wife was pretty tough, although described as a gem in the rough. And his dad was an undertaker, so he was pretty stiff sometimes.
Task Mangler
How long before the porn featuring Barry Titanate?
That doesnt mean its stronger..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
2^10 months salary . . . . ?
does it blend?
Trying to get sex after giving your girl a 'ceramic barium titanate and white-hot molten tin' engagement ring.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
there might be real world utility, if they can get around the temp probl, in resonant sensors.
that is, there are a lot of sensors where you measure the deflection of a small cantilever; in these sensors, stiffness is an important measure of quality.
having said that, this article is typical of hundreds of such articles published each year; look at the amer chem soc journal nanoletters. of these hundreds of new materials, perhaps 1 or 2 might be practical for something
but that is the academics role - to find new things that may or may not be practical
True... and "toughness" is not the same as "stiffness" either. "Toughness" refers to a material's resistance to failure by fatigue (whereas "stiffness" is, as you said, resistance to bending -- Young's Modulus). They are clearly not the same thing, as there are plenty of brittle materials which are stiff yet fail quickly in fatigue.
On a related subject, do you ever wince when somebody on TV refers to something that can push harder as being more "powerful?" Or who talks about some kind of battery having more "power" than another when they clearly mean "energy?" I understand that these words are commonly confused in everyday use, but -- if you're putting together a supposedly-educational show, for the love-of-god get it right; even if your viewers don't appreciate the subtlely, choosing words like "velocity" or "energy" when appropriate aren't going to confuse them!
To science writers everywhere: I know, I'm not perfect either -- but could you please refrain from running your fingernails across my mental chalkboard?
I needed an Allen Key in a small size that I didn't have.
I took a nail and filed one end to make a hexagon of the correct size.
I bent it to the traditional L shape. Nails are "tough as nails" so it bent without breaking.
I attempted to undo the socket cap screw. The edges of my hexagon got squished. Nails are "hard as nails"? Wood thinks so, but socket cap screws are unimpressed.
Plan B: file a hexagon on the end of a piece of "silver" steel. Heat to cherry red on gas stove. Quench. Bake at gas mark 9 for twenty minutes to anneal. Use on socket cap screw. Success!
If "hard" is what you need, "hard" is what you have to get, "tough" will not unscrew it.
Is it as hard (obviously not as large) as Lois's excited Superman prick? Yep, that's right Sup is a pussy-whipped man in tights.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
... doesn't mean it's tougher than diamond. Any mechanical engineer will remind you that strength, stiffness, and toughness are three different properties. IIRC my materials engineering class 15 years ago, they are approximately:
strength: maximum load before failure
stiffness: resistance to deformation
toughness: tendency to avoid reduction in strength over time in the face of repeated deformation
also:
hardness: ability to resist permanent deformation, particularly vs. small surface insults like scratches and indentations.
Diamond is very strong, very stiff, and very hard but it is definitely not tough: large blocks of the stuff are fairly brittle and tend to crack and chip. In fact extremely stiff materials are often not tough because they are brittle. OP has a very screwed-up title.
From TFA, we have no idea whether or not this new material is either strong or tough or hard: only that it is extremely stiff. (cue tasteless jokes)
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Well, it's one harder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be hardest at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your hardness. Where can you go from there? Where?
/geology goes Spinal Tap
Hardness, toughness, stiffness are all different. Gimme a $2 claw hammer and your wife etc's $2000 diamond ring and I'll soon show you which is tougher.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...diamonds are forever. This thing has how much time to catch up on?
Nails arent tough, they're usually mild steel. The very fact that they can bend with out breaking indicates that it's quite ductile.
By adding extra alloying agents (usually more carbon), you get a stifer material, but it will fracture instead of bending.
So all your need is some titanate to get stiffer?
Didn't we already know that?
The scientist says diamonds are created due to great pressure
The engineer says all it takes to create diamonds is a little suction
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
Will this help me hammer a 6 inch spike through a board with my penis? ...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My old Geo Metro had three crumple zones! Between the front and rear bumpers, between the left and right doors, and between the roof and tires.
Stiffer, as reported, has nothing to do with tougher or harder.
Diamond is not a very tough material. Tough, in metallurgical terms, identified the total amount of energy required to break a bar of material. Diamond is to brittle that once a crack is initiated, it's propogation is hard to stop. So there's not a lot of engergy required to break diamond.
Stiff has to do with a measure of deflection of a mean under a torsional load. This again is not something diamond excels at.
Diamond is known for it's hardness, which is the amount of energy required to make a dent, to put it simply. Are they all related? somewhat. But if unless you want an indept discussion of crystalline structures, bond energies and the like just take it for granted that stiff, hard, and tough are not all equal statements.
There's nothing that significant about a material that is more stiff than diamond.
It is strong enough that we can finally build a Ringworld?
I doubt they did that - they'd end up with a ceramic- and tin-coated ultrasonic probe. I bet they meant to say, "..combined the ceramic barium titanate and white-hot molten tin using an ultrasonic probe."
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.