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Tag Archive for: metallic glass

Could body armor be made from glass?

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Could body armor be made from glass?

Could body armor be made from glass?

Stopping projectiles and weapons in close combat has often been left to super materials like Kevlar, but some researchers think that new metallic glass formulations could find their way into the next generation of body armor and shields. Research teams from the University of California, San Diego, the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology reported the development of a metallic glass (amorphous steel) alloy that can withstand an impact without permanently deforming.

The discovery is generating significant interest because the material’s ability to withstand external forces exceeds those of any other steel alloy in existence. Metallic glasses have captured the attention of materials engineers because they are exceptional hard without being brittle. The material was designed specifically to survive extreme conditions. That means it can be created under extreme conditions without being damaged.

The material, which is currently known as SAM2X5-630, was created by mixing metal powders, which were then subject to extreme pressure and exposed to a 10,000-amp current at nearly 1,200° F. The production process is known as spark plasma sintering. That production method is preferred because it produces finished materials in a matter of minutes.

Researchers tested the material by firing high-velocity copper plates at it. The test projectiles traveled at rates between 500 m/s and 1,300 m/s. While the SAM2X5-630 samples did deform on impact, the deformations were not permanent. The test material is nearly 60 times stronger than ordinary stainless steel, and about 2.5 times stronger than tungsten-carbide ceramic.

Despite its promise, the new material doesn’t take the crown for being the most elastic. Diamonds are about 5 times stronger than the new metallic glass material, but researchers are looking for ways to make the SAM2X5-630 even better at absorbing more impact. The most likely way to accomplish that involves increasing the material’s weight.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used in both interior and exterior applications and can help reduce solar heat gain in some applications. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Program Executive Office Soldier , via Flickr.com

Metallic glass gears could be headed to space

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Metallic glass gears could be headed to space

Metallic glass gears could be headed to space

Aerospace engineers are looking at metallic glass as a potential material for gearing systems used in space. The material, which is made by melting metal, then cooling it rapidly, may prove to be useful in space vehicles, remote controlled equipment and robots.

Metallic glass is a manmade substance that relies on rapid cooling – on the order of 1,800 degrees Celsius per second – of metal to prevent the material from crystallizing at the atomic level. Ordinarily, solids have a crystalline structure, which is rigid and ordered. Glass, on the other hand, cools in such a way to prevent molecular crystallization. Instead, the material hardens without crystallizing. The molecules that make up glass order themselves randomly. In their liquid states, metallic glasses can be molded and shaped easily, the same way that glass can be blown or shaped.

Using metallic glass is interesting to scientists because the material retains the strength of metal, but can operate at extremely low temperatures and without the need for lubrication. The ability to work without lubrication is key. On Earth, lubrication is necessary to reduce friction and wear, but it will freeze and become ineffective at low temperatures. In space, power – which can be hard to come by – must be diverted from a device to heaters designed to keep the lubricants flowing. Preliminary testing showed that metallic glass could operate effectively at temperatures below minus 300° F without the need for lubricants.

Metallic glass also sidesteps another important problem: brittleness. At extremely low temperatures, metals tend to become brittle, which makes them vulnerable to breakage. Metallic glasses are not brittle at low temperatures, so gear teeth are less likely to be damaged in hostile environments.

Metallic glass also lends itself to mass production and rapid production techniques. Metallic glass can be blow molded or injection molded. Both of these techniques can rapidly produce parts, which can reduce the overall cost of making space vehicles. They can also lower costs for non-aerospace applications that can take advantage of metallic glass.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Alex Saunders, via Flickr.com

Secret of metallic glasses revealed

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Secret of metallic glasses revealed

Secret of metallic glasses revealed

Researchers at the University of Bristol say they have confirmed a long-standing theory about how metallic glasses form. Metallic glasses are prized substances because they’re harder and stronger than regular glass. They’re also much rarer than some would like, partially because we don’t have a good understanding of how metallic glasses actually form.

Since the 1950’s, a popular theory (developed by a physicist at the University of Bristol) regarding the way metallic glass forms has held among scientists. That theory says that if the metallic components organize in a pentagram shape, they can stop the crystallization of the glass particles, which is the key to metallic glass formation.

Ordinary glass naturally has faults between grains, which permits microfractures and makes it inherently weak. Metallic glass has no naturally occurring faults between grains, which makes it inherently strong. While that sounds good, the theory been impossible to confirm because scientists haven’t been able to prove without a doubt that the prevention of crystallization yields metallic glass formation.

Now, researchers have been able to use a computer simulation to reveal the mechanism by which the 5-sided metallic formation inhibits crystal formation. By changing the energy demands made on microcrystals at the surface, the rate of crystallization is slowed, allowing the metallic components to form a strong, 5-sided structure that allows glass to take on the strength and hardness characteristics of metal.

The confirmation of the theory about how metallic glass forms opens up new opportunities to make new metallic glass mixtures with potentially novel characteristics. It also points to the versatility and the growing importance of glass in a variety of applications.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store.

Photo Credit: Chris Dlugosz, via Flickr.com

Research opens up metallic glass

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A team of researchers from Duke University, Harvard University and Yale University are unlocking the secrets of metallic glass. Sometimes, molten metal cools too fast. When this happens, the atoms don’t have time to arrange themselves in the standard crystalline structure that defines most solid materials. Instead, the atoms in these metals cool and harden in random patterns, in exactly the same way that ordinary glass does. The resulting product is known as a metallic glass.

Scientists know how to create metallic glasses, but they don’t know – before they actually generate the glass – what properties the resulting glass will have. In some cases, metallic glasses may be conductive, super strong, super hard or they may have other properties that are equally desirable or specialized. The trial-and-error nature of the process makes discoveries among metallic glasses slow, and a bit of a mixed bag.

The researchers have discovered a way to predict the properties of a metallic glass product without having to manufacture or tweak anything. The process promises to save time and money, and could lead to the development of novel materials with highly desirable properties.

The researchers created a database and simulation software that examines all possible outcomes of a combination of elements, given the materials provided and their tendencies to form certain structures in nature. The simulation looks at a variety of atomic characteristics, and based on the information, is able to determine the likelihood that a particular selection of materials will bond. It can also determine the likelihood that other materials with similar atomic characteristics will bond.

The simulation allows the researchers to identify candidate materials that are more likely to bond together in a novel way. By eliminating material combinations that are likely to fail, scientists can spend more time in the lab working with materials that have a higher probability of success.

To determine the value of their simulator, the researchers tested their simulation on materials that are already known to produce metallic glass. The simulator correctly predicted successful combinations about three-quarters of the time.

At present, about two dozen known metallic glasses exist. If the simulator is correct, the researchers may be able to generate about 250 new combinations of metallic glasses with different, useful properties. So far, the simulator works with just two alloys, but the researchers have plans to reconfigure it to consider the possible outcomes of working with three different alloys. In the mean time, the researchers can also work on creating metallic glasses from the possibilities the similar has identified.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store.

New glass may be stronger than aluminum

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New glass may be stronger than aluminum

New glass may be stronger than aluminum

Researchers in Japan have created a new glass formulation that may be stronger than aluminum. The value of this glass is that it doesn’t break when it’s dropped or impacted. Glass makers have known for a long time that adding alumina to a glass mixture could make the resulting product exceptionally strong, but simply adding alumina to glass during production doesn’t yield the desired result.

Instead, adding alumina to the glass creates silicon dioxide crystals at the mixture’s point of contact with its container, which ruins the product. The researchers needed to overcome this production issue in order to create super-strong glass. Since contact with the production equipment was the cause of the problem, the Japanese researchers came up with a way to eliminate the container during production.

The process they came up with suspends the mixture on a cushion of air and mixes it with a laser. The finished product displays the expected characteristics – hardness and transparency. The resulting product is also colorless.

The researchers were able to produce the experimental glass in the laboratory, but their experimental methodology doesn’t easily translate well to a mass production environment. The next step is to modify their experimental production to allow the technique to be used to mass produce glass. Once they overcome that hurdle, we could see truly shatterproof glass in mobile phones, wearable technology and other products. Incidentally, the resulting glass isn’t necessarily limited in size. In theory, the ultra-strong glass could be used in automobiles, building windows and doors.

Glass already comes in a number of formulations that offer a number of different properties, but regardless of the formulation, Glassprimer™ glass paint will bind to them all. Glassprimer™ glass paint is designed to create a permanent bond to the surface of glass. It also makes the same permanent bond to other impervious surfaces, like stone, metal, ceramics and plastic. Glassprimer™ glass paint can also be tinted to match the paint palette of virtually any major paint manufacturer.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Kaydee H., via FreeImages.com

Metallic glass increases light transmission

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Metallic glass increases light transmission

Metallic glass increases light transmission

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have created metal-coated glass that increases light transmission by as much as 10% compared to traditional window glass. Although glass is transparent, metallic inclusions allow more light to flow through the treated glass.

Metallic glass means conductive glass

In addition to increasing light transmission, the metallic inclusions also make the glass conductive. Ordinary glass is not just non-conductive; it’s used as an insulator in a variety of applications. Making glass conductive opens up some new possibilities for energy conservation, including the creation of “programmable” windows that can either reflect or absorb heat, based on the needs of the occupants.

Using windows to control heat gain or loss is especially interesting in Canada, where 70% of the country’s energy usage is devoted to maintaining the temperature in buildings. The experimental glass was created using a vacuum deposition technique, and added a metallic layer just a few nanometers thick.

You can use Glassprimer™ glass paint to help control heat gain and loss in building interiors. Ordinary glass allows UV-radiation to pass through it virtually unimpeded. In the winter, any additional heat is welcome, but often the angle of the winter sun doesn’t lend itself to heat gain via glass. On the other hand, you can also use coatings on the glass to help retain heat during the winter.

Glassprimer™ glass paint allows natural light to penetrate the glass, but provides exceptional UV resistance. Glass coated with Glassprimer™ glass paint will resist solar heat gain, and can also help prevent heat loss at night and during the winter months.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is economical as well. You can apply Glassprimer™ glass paint and achieve complete coverage for a cost of about $1.00 per square foot. Because Glassprimer™ glass paint makes a permanent bond with the glass, it will not chip, fade or delaminate, even in direct sunlight.

No one knows how well “smart” windows will work, or even if they’re practical, but we do know that Glassprimer™ glass paint offers a practical, affordable solution for limiting heat gain and loss. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Drew Mackie, via Flickr.com