Squeezing an aluminum alloy makes it three times stronger
SEP 20, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024686
Science : Mechanical engineers would like to build airplanes, cars, and other machines from a material that’s as light and strong as titanium but much cheaper. Aluminum alloy 7075, which contains 5-6% zinc, 2-3% magnesium, and smaller amounts of certain other elements, is light, cheap, and strong, but it’s still too weak for applications that require titanium’s high tensile strength. Reporting in Nature Communications , Simon Ringer of the University of Sydney in Australia and his collaborators describe a method for boosting the strength of aluminum 7075 by a factor of three. The method relies on subjecting the metal to a pressure of 6 gigapascals, the result of which is to change the metal’s nanostructure.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
