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Materials and Energy
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20223 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
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1 / 1992 |
3,051 Words |
| Author
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Alexander Zucker
Alexander Zucker is associate director of the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. After a 20-year
career in experimental nuclear physics, he has turned his
attention to the development of high-temperature materials,
including alloys, ceramics, and composites. |
Materials define the limits of technology. This is particularly true in the case of the diverse energy technologies, where properties of materials affect the efficiency and reliability of machinery and process that convert energy to perform work, or make products that suit our purposes. In every sector of energy--including transportation, heating and cooling, industry, and agriculture--new materials are being developed. This may not be surprising in newly discovered fields such as superconductivity, but it is happening with equal vigor in the age-old art of steel-making. And no wonder; the demands placed on energy technologies are truly extraordinary. Not only will energy demand grow everywhere in the world, most of all in the developing nations, but also, as environmental issues increasingly dominate the human use of technology, greater emphasis will be placed on environmentally benign and much more efficient energy machinery. This, in turn, means that materials in the future will have to be lighter, more resistant to corrosion, better able to withstand the rigors of high temperature service, and made of substances plentiful in nature and relatively easy to extract.
Tailor-made steel
Steel will continue to dominate the energy materials field. It is by far the cheapest, most plentiful, and most versatile material we have. But it will not be the same steel we are used to now, nor will it be made in the same way. Microalloying, the adding of tiny amounts of special elements, is the steel makers' game of the future. It is now known that mixing very low levels of additives with steel can make a big difference in its properties. Adding one-tenth of a percent (0.1%) of niobium in a steel alloy can have major effects on its strength, on its ductility (the ability to deform without breaking), and its behavior at high temperatures.
Steelmaking in fact and fable is a symbol of the passing age. It has the romance of giant technology: huge cranes lifting 50-ton ladles of molten metal, 400 tons of glowing liquid metal pouring out of a tipping furnace, sparks flying, mile-long rolling mills on which the sheet steel is worked as it moves at speeds of 50 feet per second. An industry vertically integrated from its iron ore mines, coal mines, barges, coke ovens, and huge steel mills, it employs thousands of people. It is no longer dirty nor is its hallmark any longer the smell of acrid smoke, but it is still very energy intensive every step of the way.
In the next 50 years steel will probably remain at the top of the materials list, at least
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