Scientists at MIT create mathematical model to predict alloy characteristics

by arjn on 8/30/2012, 2:36 AM with 4 comments
  • by blix on 8/30/2012, 6:51 AM

    At the risk of being a downer, this isn't that interesting from a computer science perspective. What happened here is that standard computational methods were applied to test a novel theory of stability for nanocrystalline metals[1]. While this is cool and all for metallurgists[2], even by materials science standards the computation is old (we're pretty slow to pick up on this whole computer thing).

    There's some (in my opinion) more interesting work going on at MIT[3] in ceramics, where machine learning is being used to predict new material properties. Unfortunately, the group hasn't gotten published in Science or Nature yet, so I don't have much to link to. However, ceramics both are more variable than metals and less well known (one of my professors liked to call it the 'Wild West' of materials), so the big results are likely to be more exciting when they do arrive.

    --

    [1] All common metals are formed of arrays of tiny crystals, however the metals described here have much smaller crystals than usual (nanometers instead of microns). This strengthens the metals as the movement of crystal defects is the main source of weakness in metals. Defects can easily move within a single crystal, but not so much between them, so reducing the size of crystals significantly hampers defect movement and thus strengthens the metal. Unfortunately, crystals don't like being this small and so preventing them from growing is a serious concern and the focus of this research.

    [2] The new theory is actually pretty exciting, and seem to expose significant flaws in the old theory. I don't understand it well enough to say much more though.

    [3] http://ceder.mit.edu/

  • by FrojoS on 8/30/2012, 6:01 AM

    That sounds big. I still remember the horrors from my two mandatory terms of material science.

    "The school of 'ALCHMI' argues this is what gives the alloy property X, while the school 'HOCUS'says, its the sudden drop off at xx deg in the Iron-carbon phase diagram ...."

    Maybe it wasn't that bad, but it never felt like a precise science to me, at least compared to the other subjects you take as Mechi, like Math, Dynamics or Controls.

    The abstract (Thank you montecarl) only talks about "nanostructured metals" though. I wonder if this scales.

  • by montecarl on 8/30/2012, 4:04 AM