Glass Like Metal, Plastic Like Steel

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

 Two very different materials forming techniques using materials that seem to defy their “normal” characteristics promise lighter, stronger, more efficiently manufactured products – with potential applications for green flight.  Dr. Seeley shared this item from Science Daily, regarding the potential use for this new material in the solar highways reported here.  One critique of that design is the need to maintain structural integrity with semi-trucks passing over a layer of glass through which everything from lane markers to warning messages could be displayed.  Jan Schroers, a materials scientist at Yale University, is experimenting with a new class of materials called bulk metallic glasses (BMG), or metal allows with randomly arranged atoms.  “Normal” metals have more well-ordered crystalline structures, but the random atoms of BMGs, “Can be molded into complex shapes with the same ease and low expense as plastic but without sacrificing the strength and durability of metal,” according to Science Daily’s February 28, 2011 report. The report quotes Schroers, …