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New Alloy Bounces Back Into Shape 10 Million Times And Counting
wrp103 links to the BBC's report of a newly engineered alloy that returns to its original shape after deformation even after 10 million cycles more than 10 million times. From the article: "Memory shape alloys" like this have many potential uses, but present incarnations are prone to wearing out. The new material — made from nickel, titanium and copper — shatters previous records and is so resilient it could be useful in artificial heart valves, aircraft components or a new generation of solid-state refrigerators."
(Original article in Science Magazine.)
When the ballpoint pen came out, Fountain pen makers tried to compete with things like lifetime warranties. Flex nibs, when flexed too far, can spring and not bounce back. When made of expensive metals (14k gold for flex nibs), it made lifetime warranties pretty expensive for the manufacturers to have to replace nibs that people ruin. Saying no to replacing a nib wouldn't go over well, because most people can't admit that they mis-used something. So, to make the warranties stick and to not piss people off, things had to made more durable, i.e. not flexy.
It got worse when people grew up on ballpoint pens and would buy pens as adults. Ballpoint users are used to pressing hard. Pressing hard can damage nibs. Then we ended up with the ridiculously hard nails of today.
In addition, some countries (esp. France) regulated the amount of gold has to be in something to call it "gold". Flex pens should be made of 14k, but the French, in their infinite wisdom, made it 18k. That's far too soft for a flex nib, since there isn't enough memory. (And there are even some folks who make 21k nibs, which are just silly)
Nib metals also need to not corrode too, hence why it's still pretty much stainless steel (which doesn't flex well) or gold (better for corrosion, but18k is too soft). Since there are so few of us who like flexy nibs, it's not worth the research and tooling to figure out new types of nibs. (They've tried titanium, but it's just not that great)
Not necessarily. It's a simple matter to run a series of test to failure at varying stresses to determine fatigue life. Then we can employee Miner's rule to predict fatigue damage for a variety of applications for this new material.