Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 2 (ANI): Yale University scientists have developed novel metal alloys that can be moulded into virtually any shape and are stronger than steel.

Jan Schroers and his team have shown that some recently developed bulk metallic glasses (BMGs)-metal alloys that have randomly arranged atoms as opposed to the orderly, crystalline structure found in ordinary metals-can be blow moulded like plastics into complex shapes that can’t be achieved using regular metal, yet without sacrificing the strength or durability that metal affords.

“These alloys look like ordinary metal but can be blow molded just as cheaply and as easily as plastic,” Schroers said.

The team has created a number of complex shapes-including seamless metallic bottles, watch cases, miniature resonators and biomedical implants-that can be moulded in less than a minute and are twice as strong as typical steel.

And though they cost about the same as high-end steel, they can be processed as cheaply as plastic.

The alloys are made up of different metals, including zirconium, nickel, titanium and copper.

The team blow moulded the alloys at low temperatures and low pressures.

“Blow molding completely eliminates friction, allowing us to create any number of complicated shapes, down to the nanoscale.”

In addition, by blow molding the BMGs, the team was able to combine three separate steps in traditional metal processing (shaping, joining and finishing) into one, allowing them to carry out previously cumbersome, time- and energy-intensive processing in less than a minute.

“This could enable a whole new paradigm for shaping metals,” Schroers said.

“The superior properties of BMGs relative to plastics and typical metals, combined with the ease, economy and precision of blow molding, have the potential to impact society just as much as the development of synthetic plastics and their associated processing methods have in the last century.”

The results appear in the current issue of the journal Materials Today. (ANI)