Researchers from the University of Bristol have used state-of-the-art computer simulation to test a theory from the 1950s that when atoms organise themselves into 3D pentagons they suppress crystallisation. The theory by renowned Bristol physicist, Sir Charles Frank, has been a cornerstone of metallic glass development ever since from high-tech aerospace materials to the covers of our mobile phones. But until now, the mechanism by which these 3D pentagons could stop the formation of crystal nuclei has been unknown. Read more
Physicists in the US have created metal surfaces that repel water to the extent that droplets bounce away. They sculpted the surface of small pieces of platinum, titanium and brass using a very high-powered laser. Read more
New Technique Creates Stronger, Lightweight Magnesium Alloys
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating stronger, lightweight magnesium alloys that have potential structural applications in the automobile and aerospace industries. Engineers constantly seek strong, lightweight materials for use in cars and planes to improve fuel efficiency. Their goal is to develop structural materials with a high "specific strength," which is defined as a material's strength divided by its density. In other words, specific strength measures how much load it can carry per unit of weight. Read more
ESA research has helped to develop an aircraft-grade alloy that is twice as light as conventional nickel superalloys while offering equally good properties. The path to creating this alloy required research under all types of gravity. For years, engineers have known that titanium aluminide alloys offer great weight benefits over the nickel superalloys used today in conventional jet engines. Since the newer alloy can withstand extreme temperatures up to 800°C, it is of particular interest to engine manufacturers. Read more
Ames Laboratory finds ordered atoms in glass materials
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory have discovered the underlying order in metallic glasses, which may hold the key to the ability to create new high-tech alloys with specific properties. Glass materials may have a far less randomly arranged structure than formerly thought. Over the years, the ideas of how metallic glasses form have been evolving, from just a random packing, to very small ordered clusters, to realising that longer range chemical and topological order exists. Read more
World's 'lightest material' unveiled by US engineers
A team of engineers claims to have created the world's lightest material. The substance is made out of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice - a criss-crossing diagonal pattern with small open spaces between the tubes. Read more
Multidisciplinary team of researchers develop world's lightest material
A team of researchers from UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have developed the world's lightest material - with a density of 0.9 mg/cc - about one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam. Their findings appear in the Nov. 18 issue of Science. The new material redefines the limits of lightweight materials because of its unique "micro-lattice" cellular architecture. The researchers were able to make a material that consists of 99.99 percent air by designing the 0.01 percent solid at the nanometer, micron and millimetre scales. Read more
Glass, by definition, is amorphous; its atoms lack order and are arranged every which way. But when scientists squeezed tiny samples of a metallic glass under high pressure, they got a surprise: The atoms lined up in a regular pattern to form a single crystal. It's the first time researchers have glimpsed this hidden property in a glass. The discovery, reported June 17th in Science, offers a new window into the atomic structure and behaviour of metallic glasses, which have been used for decades in products such as anti-theft tags and power transformers but are still poorly understood. The more scientists learn about the structure of these commercially important materials, the more effectively they can design new metallic glasses and tinker with old ones to improve their performance. Read more
Strong, Tough, and Now Cheap: Caltech Researchers Have New Way to Process Metallic Glass
Stronger than steel or titanium - and just as tough - metallic glass is an ideal material for everything from cell-phone cases to aircraft parts. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a new technique that allows them to make metallic-glass parts utilising the same inexpensive processes used to produce plastic parts. With this new method, they can heat a piece of metallic glass at a rate of a million degrees per second and then mould it into any shape in just a few milliseconds. Read more