Scientists discover a way to triple the strength of aluminum

[krispos42]

Apparantly, a slow-motion version of grinding a roach under your heel does wonders for the structure of aluminum alloys!

Metal Smasher Makes Aluminum as Strong as Steel
by Phil Berardelli on 17 September 2010, 3:26 PM

Snuffing out a cigarette butt with a 10-ton boot would be excessive, but using the equivalent on certain metals can yield amazing results. By smashing an aluminum alloy between two anvils, researchers have created a metal that's as strong as steel but much lighter. If the process can be commercialized, it could yield better components for aircraft and automobiles, as well as metal armor light enough for soldiers to wear in battle.

Aluminum's main advantage is its lightness. But the second-most-abundant metal in Earth's crust is also a weakling: It breaks apart under loads that heavier metals such as steel shoulder easily. For decades, scientists have been looking for a way to manufacture the aluminum equivalent of titanium, a lightweight metal that's stronger than steel, but without titanium's high cost.

In the new study, an international team of materials scientists turned to an emerging metal-processing technique called high-pressure torsion (HPT). Basically, HPT involves clamping a thin disk of metal to a cylindrical anvil and pressing it against another anvil with a force of about 60,000 kilograms per square centimeter, all while turning one anvil slowly. The researchers also kept the processed samples at room temperature for over a month, in a common metallurgical process called natural aging. The deformation under the enormous pressure plus the aging alters the basic structure of metals at the nanoscale—or distances measured in billionths of a meter.

And indeed, when the team subjected an alloy of aluminum called aluminum 7075 (which contains small percentages of magnesium and zinc) to the process, the metal attained a strength of 1 gigapascal, the researchers report in the current issue of Nature Communications. That's equal to some of the strongest steels and more than three times higher than conventional aluminum. A meter-square plate of the processed alloy could withstand the weight of a fully loaded aircraft carrier.

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http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/09/metal-smasher-makes-aluminum-as-.html?rss=1

Sweet!

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. But is it transparent and strong enough to make a whale tank??

[jobycom]

3. Dangit! That's what I get for searching for a pic!

Second place! :grr: :rofl:

But I did find this: http://www.physorg.com/news167925273.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. LOL Hello, it's transparent. You coulda just _claimed_ there was a pic of it in the post! Bwahahah!!

Way cool link, tho! :hug:

[krispos42]

4. Scientists have discovered...

...it's easier and cheaper to build the whale tank out of stainless steel, paint it white, and project an image of a swimming whale onto the side of the tank. The money saved can be readily converted into booze and strippers.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Those are DOD scientists, right?

[krispos42]

12. Minerals Management, I believe

:rofl:

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. But of course!

[jobycom]

2. Now if they can only figure out how to make it transparent...

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. "Computerrrr. Hello, computerrrr!"

[tridim]

5. It kind of amazes me that they haven't tried this in the past.

It seems like an obvious experiment that Reynolds would do.

[cliffordu]

8. Gonna make some CRAZY light bicycles.

[tridim]

10. And cars frames and bodies. I wonder how it welds?

[cliffordu]

11. Could be a terrible heat effected area........

crumbly......

[txlibdem]

15. Light weight but stronger than steel car frames

I can imagine great potential use in electric vehicles.

I wonder if a Ford F-150 EV could come out of this research. Perhaps with the next generation of batteries 2013 to 2015.

[tinrobot]

13. The bike may be light, but how will it ride?

Aluminum bikes tend to be more "noisy" in that they transmit road vibrations through the frame. Carbon and steel tend to absorb these vibrations, making the bikes ride more "smoothly"

It would be interesting to see what this new aluminum can do.

[Enthusiast]

14. Okay this is fantastic.

It will make cars, trucks, trains, buses, motorcycles, bicycles and race cars faster and more fuel efficient. Now how about we use this technology to actually manufacture things here in the U.S.A.

[dimbear]

17. Wait a minute..........

is this effect permanent? Or does it go away gradually? Could be important if you were, say, hanging by it.

[charlie]

18. Hey guys, have you considered smooshing it... like this?

What makes this wonderful for me is that it's so improbably low tech. It seems more like an artisan's secret than the result of modern analysis and engineering.