When I was working for a design engineering firm, we often looked at exotic metals and alloys as solutions to chemical reactor material for highly corrosive compounds. Nickel, chromium and cobalt alloys such as the Hastelloy B and C metals were extremely attractive for their corrosion resistance and strength properties. Of course, they were difficult to work with because their hardness made them difficult to cut and mill.
Now research is coming out that alloys consisting of equal quantities of those three metals have extremely high strength and ductility.
“The toughness of this material near liquid helium temperatures (20 kelvin, -424 °Fahrenheit) is as high as 500 megapascals square root meters. In the same units, the toughness of a piece of silicon is one, the aluminum airframe in passenger airplanes is about 35, and the toughness of some of the best steels is around 100. So, 500, it’s a staggering number,” said research co-leader Robert Ritchie, a senior faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and the Chua Professor of Engineering at UC Berkeley.”
If you notice this extreme toughness measure is recorded at -424 °F. This implies that the toughness number is not as high at normal temperatures. Now this is unusual. Most materials become brittle at cryogenic temperatures not more ductile. But I assume the toughness they’re measuring is still at very high levels for ambient conditions. A material that’s five times stronger than the strongest steels is remarkable. Even double or triple is unheard of.
These alloys are very expensive and would start out being used in the most critical applications such as space flight. But over the course of time these new materials will find other applications. Maybe one day this material might end up in the beams of a mile high building or an enormous bridge. And before you know it they’ll make golf clubs and tennis rackets out of it.
It’s gratifying to see that not all the physical sciences and engineering fields have completely ground to a halt during the Age of Biden. Possibly there is still hope of our civilization escaping another dark age.