Materials Sciences

Automotive manufacturers may soon benefit from a new breed of metals – known as functionally gradient materials – that can withstand the high temperatures of die casting without cracking under pressure, according to a researcher at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

UMR researchers, led by Dr. Frank Liou, director of the manufacturing engineering program and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, hope to build better die-casting molds by developing materials that are both

People are just as likely to be killed, or property damaged, by the shock wave from an exploding bomb as from flying debris or flames. The rush of gases emanating from a bomb can travel more than 10 times the speed of sound, destroying everything in its path.

Two University of Rhode Island engineers have constructed a “shock tube” to simulate this rush of gas so they can test the ability of various new composite materials to withstand these extreme forces.

“What we’re

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered that the addition of carbon nanotubes to a common commercial polymer, polypropylene, leads to dramatic changes in how the molten polymer flows. This process eliminates a widespread manufacturing headache known as “die-swell” in which polymers swell in undesirable directions when passing through the exit port of an extruder (a machine for producing more or less continuous lengths of plastic sections).

A major foresight project on materials technology has been launched to put Norway’s need for expertise in nano- and materials technology on the agenda.

Norway hasn’t had a general R&D strategy for materials technology or nanotechnology since the 1980’s and is far behind the USA and the rest of Europe. In 1999, Bill Clinton allocated 500 million US dollars to nano research through the Nanotech Initiative. The same year, the Norwegian White Paper on Research was presented without ment

Aluminium is a metal widely used in industry; therefore the more that is known about it, the more effectively it can be used. Researchers at Risø National Laboratory in Denmark and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France have filmed in 3D the changes in the bulk of deformed aluminium after annealing. Thanks to the uniqueness of the synchrotron light at the ESRF, this kind of experiment could take place for the first time ever. The results give a new insight into this metal and c

In automotive catalytic converters and industrial exhaust gas filters, porous materials play a crucial role: they filter and break down hot waste gases. It is now possible to process virtually all metal alloys into fibers which can be used to make open-pored sintered materials.

The requirements to be met by a coffee filter are simple: it must retain the powder and not be decomposed by the hot water. The conditions for dealing with exhaust gases in industrial processes are much tougher: tem