Science: A new super hard metal has been created in the lab

not2sharp

not2sharp

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Well this is interesting. A new experimental metal product.

The metal is a combination of Titanium and gold and is said to be 4x tougher than titanium. The RC on this stuff rises to about 62. The new material is being developed primarily for medical use (joint replacement).

Link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36855705

n2s
 
You know it, man. VERY pricey!!!!! But then again, the devices made from plain old titanium are going to be outrageously expensive to begin with as they are medical devices. As stated in the article, the big deal with this stuff is that it is "biocompatible" in addition to being hard enough that you could break that 10 year replacement cycle. Yo do learn something new every day. I was unaware that titanium was the only commonly used metal that would support new line growth like they described. I thought they used it because it was very strong, so you didn't have to make the devices as bulky.
S.Alexander said:
That's very cool. I'd imagine it will be pricey though!
Click to expand...
 
I had seen that too .I've always known about ordered alloys but never studied it .This seems interesting but a poorly written article .Not defining things , do they mean hardnessor tensile strength ! They have been know for a long time !
Another interesting one is the Shape Memory Alloys .When first made I was fascinated and had to beg and plead for a small piece of wire .It's now defined as a reversable martensite but with interesting uses.
 
jdm61 said:
I was unaware that titanium was the only commonly used metal that would support new line growth like they described. I thought they used it because it was very strong, so you didn't have to make the devices as bulky.
Click to expand...

Me either, that was a very interesting read.
 
I have a nearly inexhaustible supply of titanium from a friend who runs a crematorium :)

It will probably be a while before any of these show up, though.
 
Isn't Iron Man's suit a gold/titanium alloy? ;-)

Interesting article. Anyone know what color it is? Might be cool to make a King Tut dagger out of it.
 
Our Ti sword guy , Mecha , uses a medical alloy , Ti with Nb but it looks just like Ti .
 
I agree

Poorly written and poorly researched by the BBC author

First, joint replacements last much longer than 10 years - that was the case in the 90s....

Second, joints don't wear out because they are not HARD enough...they wear out because of particulate debris from UHMWPE primarily

Third, Titanium is not used as a bearing surface anyway...because it is not that good for bearing surfaces. It is used for the body of the implant that comes in contact with the bone and allows ingrowth/ongrowth of bone to the prosthesis

"Pure" Titanium is also not that hard anyway, and I'm still not sure whether this new alloy is "harder" or "tougher".....which are of course not the same thing...

waiting until the actual paper/data gets posted...

Bill
 
The referenced journal article states that the maximum achieved hardness was 800 Hv which is approximately equal to 62.5 Rc.
 
They're not saying this is the best stuff for everything. They said this is the hardest biocompatible material they've found with better wear resistance than pure Ti and better shear resistance. They also said plenty of steels can be harder but they're toxic and therefore not biocompatible. Aside from the 800 Hv mentioned, that's about all the meat and potatoes info they gave. And they were pretty specific. They didn't mention impact strength or anything else. Still interesting though.
 
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