No Bones About It: This Steel Was Inspired By Anatomy
04/04/2017 - An international team of researchers have developed an experimental type of steel that they say is more resistant to fatigue cracks.
Taking a cue from the structure of human bone, the researchers created a laminated steel that has thin, alternating nanoscale layers of different crystal structures, which stops cracks from spreading, they wrote in the journal Science.
“We show here that when steel microstructures are hierarchical and laminated, similar to the substructure of bone, superior crack resistance can be realized. Our results reveal that tuning the interface structure, distribution, and phase stability to simultaneously activate multiple micromechanisms that resist crack propagation is key for the observed leap in mechanical response,” they said in the abstract.
Their work is published in the 10 March 2017 issue.
“We show here that when steel microstructures are hierarchical and laminated, similar to the substructure of bone, superior crack resistance can be realized. Our results reveal that tuning the interface structure, distribution, and phase stability to simultaneously activate multiple micromechanisms that resist crack propagation is key for the observed leap in mechanical response,” they said in the abstract.
Their work is published in the 10 March 2017 issue.
