New alloy of iron and aluminium as good as titanium, at a tenth of the cost

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

mountainm

Bushcrafter through and through
Jan 12, 2011
9,990
12
Selby
www.mikemountain.co.uk
Shiney!

http://boingboing.net/2015/02/05/new-alloy-of-iron-and-aluminiu.html

Titanium alloys are lightweight, strong, crack-resistant, and fatigue-resistant. This makes them useful in aerospace applications. Unfortunately Titanium is also expensive - around $3 a pound.
Steel is strong and cheap (30 cents a pound), but much heavier than titanium, making it unsuitable for jets. Aluminum is light and cheap (84 cents a pound) but weaker than steel or titanium.
Researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea have created an alloy out of iron, aluminum, carbon, manganese, and nickel that has "the strength and the lightness of titanium alloys but will, when produced at scale, cost a tenth as much."
 

Harvestman

Bushcrafter through and through
May 11, 2007
8,656
26
55
Pontypool, Wales, Uk
Then factor in the "it's new!" surcharge, and the marketing costs, and it will probably cost as least as much as the titanium ones.

From a bushcraft perspective this will take a while to filter down to us, but my immediate questions are "What is the heat conductivity like?" having welded a few meals to a titanium pot, and of course "Will it hold and edge?"

Interesting though.
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,154
1,546
Cumbria
Yawn! New steel grade has been invented in the mat lab and the scientists have managed to get it into the mainstream media as a wonder material. Not seen that before. Sorry to burst a few bubbles but intermetallics as they called it is nothing new. I got my metallurgy degree 20 years ago and materials science degree a few years later and it was not new then. They might have produced a new grade of steel but whether it makes commercial production is questionable. There's probably a lot of similar steels and other alloys created in labs but large scale production in sufficient quantities to make it economical is another level of difficulty. Wish them luck but don't hold your breath about seeing a nice shiny pot or stove in the near future.

As far as aerospace or automotive industries go, as a conservative industry I fully expect any commercial offering of this sort of material to take a long time to reach planes we'll be flying in. Besides they have enough exotic materials that have amazing properties to look at as well. If you have any interest in materials you really need to look into gas turbine compressor blades. Exotic alloys and amazing production methods to achieve crystal structures to resist creep. I would not like to try and come up with the phase diagrams for them.
 

mountainm

Bushcrafter through and through
Jan 12, 2011
9,990
12
Selby
www.mikemountain.co.uk
Yawn! New steel grade has been invented in the mat lab and the scientists have managed to get it into the mainstream media as a wonder material. Not seen that before. Sorry to burst a few bubbles but intermetallics as they called it is nothing new. I got my metallurgy degree 20 years ago and materials science degree a few years later and it was not new then. They might have produced a new grade of steel but whether it makes commercial production is questionable. There's probably a lot of similar steels and other alloys created in labs but large scale production in sufficient quantities to make it economical is another level of difficulty. Wish them luck but don't hold your breath about seeing a nice shiny pot or stove in the near future.

As far as aerospace or automotive industries go, as a conservative industry I fully expect any commercial offering of this sort of material to take a long time to reach planes we'll be flying in. Besides they have enough exotic materials that have amazing properties to look at as well. If you have any interest in materials you really need to look into gas turbine compressor blades. Exotic alloys and amazing production methods to achieve crystal structures to resist creep. I would not like to try and come up with the phase diagrams for them.

maybe. maybe not, no bubbles burst - I don't think we're at the chicken counting stage yet. But equally I'm not yet jaded enough to dismiss everything outright.

From the full article

http://www.economist.com/news/scien...-alloy-iron-and-aluminium-good-titanium-tenth

There is, of course, many a slip ’twixt laboratory bench and production line, but POSCO, one of the world’s largest steel companies, is sufficiently interested in Dr Kim’s discovery to be planning, later this year, a trial that will produce it at industrial scale. If that goes well, not only may steel’s retreat from cars be reversed, but a steel aircraft may one day take to the skies.
 

Lithril

Administrator
Admin
Jan 23, 2004
2,590
55
Southampton, UK
Yawn! New steel grade has been invented in the mat lab and the scientists have managed to get it into the mainstream media as a wonder material. Not seen that before. Sorry to burst a few bubbles but intermetallics as they called it is nothing new. I got my metallurgy degree 20 years ago and materials science degree a few years later and it was not new then. They might have produced a new grade of steel but whether it makes commercial production is questionable. There's probably a lot of similar steels and other alloys created in labs but large scale production in sufficient quantities to make it economical is another level of difficulty. Wish them luck but don't hold your breath about seeing a nice shiny pot or stove in the near future.

As far as aerospace or automotive industries go, as a conservative industry I fully expect any commercial offering of this sort of material to take a long time to reach planes we'll be flying in. Besides they have enough exotic materials that have amazing properties to look at as well. If you have any interest in materials you really need to look into gas turbine compressor blades. Exotic alloys and amazing production methods to achieve crystal structures to resist creep. I would not like to try and come up with the phase diagrams for them.

You're right but then every now and then one does stick which actually works and makes its way main scale. It has to really or we'd all be using pig iron still. Away from metals, look at the impact that graphene is having at the moment and that's ridiculous that it's taken this long to realise and use the properties of a single layer of carbon however the developments and research into this at the moment are staggering.

Be interesting to see if this alloy does take off.
 

Jared

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Sep 8, 2005
3,390
640
50
Wales
Most announcements like this seem to be to attempt to attract funding.
 

Bishop

Full Member
Jan 25, 2014
1,716
691
Pencader
If the history of Titanium is anything to go by then price and availability will improve in the event the military find a use for it.
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE