This seems like a pretty big materials breakthrough.
8 thoughts on “Metal-Ceramic Alloys”
Chewy yet crunchy!
It doesn’t seem like an alloy, and it isn’t original either.
Isn’t an alloy defined by soluble mixing in the liquid phase? This sounds not like a solution but rather a colloid — a mixing at the level of microscopic particles.
As to this being original, if I remember my PBS NOVA documentary TV shows on the subject, there was something in the Middle Ages called Wootz steel used in sword blades? Like this, it was a metal-ceramic composite where slag particles (the ceramic) was “worked” into the steel, giving it the chewy yet crunchy attributes of tough yet hard.
Now 3D printing of Wootz steel is something to talk about because you can include the slag particles without back-breaking (and ear-breaking) labor of pounding on it with hammers?
Interesting. For decades producing amorphous metals (or metal ‘glasses’) components has been hypothesized as a micro-G industry.
This tech arrives just in time for incorporation into the Raptor 3.
Is it being used Falcon 9 [it’s new nozzle]??
Not so far. But the Falcons still have a lot of future service life ahead. And the new “shorty” Mvac nozzle indicates that efforts to remove costs from Falcon missions continue. If this new-tech metal proves suitable for engine bells, it could well displace the currently-used niobium alloy in upper stage applications. Given the near-supernatural creep resistance reported for this new type of cer-met alloy, I was figuring it would be a slam-dunk for both rotating and stationary components of engine hot sections – Raptor for sure, but perhaps also Merlin. Better performance and longer service life are lures for giving any engine a design upgrade.
I got nothing from that article. 600 times a completely undefined “stress” is meaningless, especially since the article referred to “stress” as exposure to high temperature. If they meant the actual engineering definition of “stress” as force per unit area, then it would be mind-boggling. If they meant the emotional stress associated with global warming (completely consistent with the article), well…need I say more>?
In other reading I’ve done about this new class of cer-met alloys, the “stresses” it is best at resisting are those associated with high pressure and high centrifugal force at very elevated temperatures. The stuff has borderline-magical creep resistance. Rocket engines are the obviously paradigmatic use cases.
Chewy yet crunchy!
It doesn’t seem like an alloy, and it isn’t original either.
Isn’t an alloy defined by soluble mixing in the liquid phase? This sounds not like a solution but rather a colloid — a mixing at the level of microscopic particles.
As to this being original, if I remember my PBS NOVA documentary TV shows on the subject, there was something in the Middle Ages called Wootz steel used in sword blades? Like this, it was a metal-ceramic composite where slag particles (the ceramic) was “worked” into the steel, giving it the chewy yet crunchy attributes of tough yet hard.
Now 3D printing of Wootz steel is something to talk about because you can include the slag particles without back-breaking (and ear-breaking) labor of pounding on it with hammers?
Interesting. For decades producing amorphous metals (or metal ‘glasses’) components has been hypothesized as a micro-G industry.
This tech arrives just in time for incorporation into the Raptor 3.
Is it being used Falcon 9 [it’s new nozzle]??
Not so far. But the Falcons still have a lot of future service life ahead. And the new “shorty” Mvac nozzle indicates that efforts to remove costs from Falcon missions continue. If this new-tech metal proves suitable for engine bells, it could well displace the currently-used niobium alloy in upper stage applications. Given the near-supernatural creep resistance reported for this new type of cer-met alloy, I was figuring it would be a slam-dunk for both rotating and stationary components of engine hot sections – Raptor for sure, but perhaps also Merlin. Better performance and longer service life are lures for giving any engine a design upgrade.
I got nothing from that article. 600 times a completely undefined “stress” is meaningless, especially since the article referred to “stress” as exposure to high temperature. If they meant the actual engineering definition of “stress” as force per unit area, then it would be mind-boggling. If they meant the emotional stress associated with global warming (completely consistent with the article), well…need I say more>?
In other reading I’ve done about this new class of cer-met alloys, the “stresses” it is best at resisting are those associated with high pressure and high centrifugal force at very elevated temperatures. The stuff has borderline-magical creep resistance. Rocket engines are the obviously paradigmatic use cases.