Scientists Invent A New Steel As Strong As Titanium

"Before we starting building skyscrapers out of super-steel, they'll have to figure out a way to protect the material out in the real world."

sounds like corrosion is an issue, and of course the meat and potatoes article is pay-walled over at nature....I really hate that
 
Blade weight and strength is not really a huge issue with most pocket knives. Modern steel is generally tougher and stronger than 99.99% of any projected uses will ever require. The main value add for a new steel or alloy vs existing steels would be improved edge retention, and the article does not speak to that. Aluminum is a relatively soft metal compared to steel, I don't see how a steel/aluminum alloy will be harder than current steel alloys unless aluminum oxides somehow come into play, and the article does not speak to that.
 
I am not sure that titanium is actually "stronger" than certain steel alloys in similar size pieces. It's advantage is that it is lighter. Pound for pound, the aluminum-scandiium alloys are probably stronger than titanium, but they make Ti look as cheap as Home Depot junk steel!!! I am tempted to put this discovery into the same category as the "flash bainite" process in that it has the potential to create superior alloys that are actually affordable enough to use for such mundane things as construction or automobile parts.
 
I would not be surprised to find out that a steel/aluminum crystal lattice like this couldn't be heat treated or welded without destroying it's structural properties.

But the structural properties are pretty cool for aviation and strong/light sport uses. Of course, Scandium alloys haven't amounted to much in that category, either.
 
If they can build a ship and shipping container with it, then they can carry additional cargo with that weight reduction.
Plus cars, weight reduction is the simplest way to fuel efficiency.

that will be useful, if they can figure out a way to weld it.

but I don't see it being useful in knife steel



http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2015/02/04/new_steel_outperforms_titanium_109058.html

The steel under investigation here was produced using an induction melting furnace. About 40 kg was melted in a protective argon atmosphere and cast to a rectangular ingot. After homogenization treatment at 1,150 C for 2 h, the ingot was hot-rolled with a starting temperature of 1,050 C to hot strips 3 mm in thickness. Then, the hot-rolled strips were cold-rolled to final sheets 1 mm in thickness. The cold-rolled sheets were annealed at 870–900 C for 2–60 min and immediately water-quenched or continuously cooled down to 25 C at the rate of 30 C.

After creating their new steel, which they dubbed high-specific-strength steel (HSSS), the researchers put it to the test, comparing it to two top, widely-used alloys of steel (PHS and TRIPLEX), one of titanium (Ti6Al4V), and one of aluminum (AA2000). They found that HSSS matched titanium's strength, while proving more ductile at those strengths. The aluminum and steel alloys were soundly beaten.

If adopted, the new steel could be applied in a host of settings, from buildings, to bridges, to car
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Hey, at least we're all keeping an eye out for the Next Great Blade Material... although I'm not anxious to give up the steels I know and love.
 
I was thinking more in line with replacing titanium for knife handles and bolsters

That shit is expensive :)
 
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AVigil said:
I was thinking more in line with replacing titanium for knife handles and bolsters

That shit is expensive :)
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I have wondered for a while what is wrong with some of the more interesting aluminum alloys for those purposes? Would it be considered a "cheap" material like brass? I wonder how much of the attractiveness of titanium in those applications is due to the sexy/cool factor of using such a high zoot material? I haven't seen long term results, but Lion Steel seemed pretty comfortable using aluminum alloy for the scales/lockbar of their lower priced monobloc folders. I handled a family burly custom titanium flipper at my local knife shop yesterday and I really didn't feel much of anything resembling weight savings.
 
jdm61 said:
I have wondered for a while what is wrong with some of the more interesting aluminum alloys for those purposes? Would it be considered a "cheap" material like brass? I wonder how much of the attractiveness of titanium in those applications is due to the sexy/cool factor of using such a high zoot material? I haven't seen long term results, but Lion Steel seemed pretty comfortable using aluminum alloy for the scales/lockbar of their lower priced monobloc folders. I handled a family burly custom titanium flipper at my local knife shop yesterday and I really didn't feel much of anything resembling weight savings.
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You can use almost anything for a bolster or scale, but titanium is preferred for frame locks because it is fairly hard and makes a decent spring. Not many metals make good springs.

The metal I'm surprised doesn't get more use is bronze. The bronze age didn't end because primitive steels where so much better - they just started running out of copper. I'd like to see a bronze frame lock.
 
Common blade steels are already much stronger than titanium (tensile and compression yield) and have higher strength to weight ratios too.
 
Man, and I just bought up all of Orren Boyle's preferred stock of Associated Steel! Dang competition, making it hard for the little guys. But, we can't be blamed. Oh no, no one can blame us.

If you get that, big thumbs up. If not, look it up.
 
Scandium is a 'rare earth ' metal $$$$$
'Scandium 'revolvers of Smith&Wesson are aluminum with about 1 % scandium .Just another "microalloying " example which is the typical thing us metallurgists use to produce better alloys !
 
RX-79G said:
You can use almost anything for a bolster or scale, but titanium is preferred for frame locks because it is fairly hard and makes a decent spring. Not many metals make good springs.

The metal I'm surprised doesn't get more use is bronze. The bronze age didn't end because primitive steels where so much better - they just started running out of copper. I'd like to see a bronze frame lock.
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My understanding re bronze was that the big problem was always the availability and cost of the tin, not the copper. There is now some fairly good indication that perhaps even as early as the Phoenician period, traders from the Med were going as far away as Cornwall to trade for tin. Early iron implements were arguably not as good in some regards when compared to the well developed bronze ones , but iron ore was cheap and could found in MANY places, so once we graduated from finding "sacred"meteorites to smelting ore, we were good to go.
 
mete said:
Scandium is a 'rare earth ' metal $$$$$
'Scandium 'revolvers of Smith&Wesson are aluminum with about 1 % scandium .Just another "microalloying " example which is the typical thing us metallurgists use to produce better alloys !
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My limited layman's understudying is that scandium as a small alloying has a pretty amazing impact on "grain growth" in aluminum to the degree of pretty much eliminating it even at welding sites. Of course, as you pointed out, the world trade in pure scandiumin its metallic from is about 10kg a year and the total "production" of stadium oxide is around 2000kgs a year, of which a majority, or around 1500 kgs, come from existing Russian stocks that were produced in the Cold War. A "rare earth element" indeed!!!! Supposedly, much of the world's scandium comes from two mines in Russia and one in China. The only two mineral deposits that have what they consider "high" levels of scandium are in Sri Lanka and Norway and neither roof them are currently being exploited for that purpose.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Common blade steels are already much stronger than titanium (tensile and compression yield) and have higher strength to weight ratios too.
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But that doesn't stop people from buying knives with an interior metal. Barring a necessity for its qualities, Ti blades are the obvious example.

People would probably buy a knife made with a new steel just because it's new. We all know that steels like 440C are excellent, but it's usually not the first choice for buyers. Obviously 440C gets a bad wrap because of bad ht and because of the steels more mysteriously id'd cousins of a similar nomenclature, but I wouldn't be surprised if people lined up to buy a knife made with a new, but inferior, material, assuming it works reasonably well.

In use on other parts of a knife, the customer would probably have to be educated for the maker to get a premium from its newness. That is, unless the new material had a unique look.

Aluminum is definitely considered a lower form of handle material, at least on production knives, which probably trickles down. The fact that aluminum (and steel) are typically used on low end production knives handles is my best guess as to why that is.

I'm just a consumer, and the above is just my opinion. :)
 
Omega Leather Works said:
But that doesn't stop people from buying knives with an interior metal. Barring a necessity for its qualities, Ti blades are the obvious example.

People would probably buy a knife made with a new steel just because it's new. We all know that steels like 440C are excellent, but it's usually not the first choice for buyers. Obviously 440C gets a bad wrap because of bad ht and because of the steels more mysteriously id'd cousins of a similar nomenclature, but I wouldn't be surprised if people lined up to buy a knife made with a new, but inferior, material, assuming it works reasonably well.

In use on other parts of a knife, the customer would probably have to be educated for the maker to get a premium from its newness.

Aluminum is definitely considered a lower form of handle material, at least on production knives, which probably trickles down. The fact that aluminum (and steel) are typically used on low end production knives handles is my best guess as to why that is.

I'm just a consumer, and the above is just my opinion. :)
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Same with scale material like carbon fiber and kevlar. There you see potential material properties that are not only arguably unnecessary in knife applications, but ones not even properly utilized. I was told by one person who works with the stuff that kevlar potentially has one very undesirable property in that fibers can be quite hygroscopic if not completely and carefully sealed off. But the stuff is super sexy, right. ;)
 
jdm61 said:
Same with scale material like carbon fiber and kevlar. There you see potential material properties that are not only arguably unnecessary in knife applications, but ones not even properly utilized. I was told by one person who works with the stuff that kevlar potentially has one very undesirable property in that fibers can be quite hygroscopic if not completely and carefully sealed off. But the stuff is super sexy, right. ;)
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Exactly. Look at Lightning Strike cf. It has no use over the more typically produced product and can, reportedly, have the metal fibers exposed. The stuff has a legitimate design, but not so much for handle material. Even so, consumers want it because it's different. Nothing wrong with that.
 
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