The ability to lock the
characteristics of super strong nanometals now makes their manufacture for day
to day use quite practical. Industry
continues to advance our ability to discard mass and simultaneously increase
structural integrity. It is a long ways
from your grandfather’s metallurgy.
The automobile industry is now
certainly driving this revolution. We
are shifting to an electric future and we have all become aware of the impact
of unnecessary mass on the vehicle’s actual range. A lot of this is because the human mass is
now a significant share of the vehicle’s load as the weight load declines. A new balance must be struck.
We are on the way to using
material appearing to be fragile but anything but.
A new discovery paves the way for using super strong nanostructured
metals in cars
by Staff Writers
Super strong nanometals are beginning to play an important role in
terms of making cars even lighter, enabling them to stand collisions without
fatal consequences for the passengers. A PhD student at Riso DTU has discovered
a new phenomenon that will make nanometals more useful in practice.
Today, the body of an ordinary family car consists of 193 different
types of steel. The steel for each part of the car has been carefully selected
and optimised. It is important, for example, that all parts are as light as
possible because of the fuel consumption, whereas other parts of the car have
to be super strong in order to protect passengers in a collision.
Super strong nanostructured metals are now entering the scene, aimed at
making cars even lighter, enabling them to stand collisions in a better way
without fatal consequences for the passengers. Research into this field is
being conducted worldwide.
Recently, a young PhD student from the Materials Research Division
at Riso DTU took research a step further by discovering a new phenomenon.
The new discovery could speed up the practical application of strong
nanometals and has been published in the highly esteemed journal
"Proceedings of the Royal Society" in London in the form of a paper
of approx. 30 pages written by three authors from Riso DTU.
The research task of the young student, Tianbo Yu, is to determine the
stability in new nanostructured metals, which are indeed very strong, but also
tend to become softer, even at low temperatures. This is due to the fact that
microscopic metal grains of nanostructured metals are not stable - a problem of
which Tianbo Yu's discovery now provides an explanation.
The fine structure consists of many small metal grains. The
boundaries between these metal grains can move, also at room temperature.
At the same time a coarsening of the structure takes place and the
strength of the nanometal is consequently weakened. Tianbo Yu's has now shown
that the boundaries of the grains can be locked, when small particles are
present and that the solution is technologically feasible. This has paved
the way for car components to be made of nanometals.
"We are cooperating with a Danish company and also a Danish
consulting engineering company with the purpose of developing light and strong
aluminium materials with a view to their application in light vehicles where
especially deformation at high rate as in a collision is in focus. The new
findings will be included in this work," says Dorte Juul Jensen, head of
division and Dr. Techn. She is happy that the excellent findings also have
practical applications.
Tianbo Yu comes from Tsinghua University in Beijing Denmark
Tianbo Yu is a dedicated and talented researcher, who wishes to pursue
a research career in Denmark Roskilde
University
No comments:
Post a Comment