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Glassy Aluminum Alloys
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# : |
18053 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1990 |
2,610 Words |
| Author
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G.J. Shiflet
G.J. Shiflet is a professor of materials science at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville. |
Glassy aluminum alloys. The name itself is attractive. We know about glass and we know about aluminum. But what would glassy aluminum. But what would glassy aluminum be? The word alloy gets lost. We want to know if there is now a metal we can see through.
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, whales are brought from the twentieth to the twenty-third century in a "tank" constructed of a tough, lightweight material called "transparent aluminum." Did the writers of Star Trek successfully predict a breakthrough of materials science that is now coming to pass?
Research on glassy aluminum alloys is part of the larger class of research on glassy metal alloys, a field that has been active for more than 30 years. In this time, an enormous variety of liquid metals have been transformed into metallic glass. However, until recently none was based on aluminum - and none was transparent.
A lightweight glassy metal alloy has been sought by metallurgists for decades because in theory, such a material could be as strong as high-grade steel but much lighter. Because aluminum is the lightest-weight workable metal, it was the natural choice as the preferred primary component of the alloy. Yet prior to 1988, the quest for a metallic glass rich in aluminum with high strength coupled with ductility (i.e., not brittle) was losing its allure. The possibilities for finding a glassy aluminum alloy seemed more and more remote.
Then in 1988, two separate and independent groups in the United States and Japan made nearly identical discoveries of glassy aluminum alloys containing more that 90 percent aluminum. In as interesting twist, a group of French researchers reported in 1989 on their long-term work leading to there discovery of more complicated glassy aluminum alloy systems containing roughly 70 percent aluminum. However, in their developmental process they had not published their findings, choosing instead to apply for patents.
The reports in 1988 were of a family aluminum-rich alloys that form 100 percent glassy aluminum alloy when cooled rapidly under specific conditions this find has raised hopes that these alloys may succeed in structural applications where other metallic glasses have failed.
Amorphous (glassy) metals are produced by cooling molten metals so fast they do not form regular crystalline structures, but are "frozen" in random atomic patterns
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