Industry Related News: United States – August, 2020:
A new alloy was recently developed and announced by a team of researchers at Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. The team added chromium to a Fe-Mn-Al-Ni alloy to create a superelastic compound. Throughout their thermal testing, they also discovered that changing the amount of chromium added would result in different variants of the alloy, all of which they classified as invar alloys. “Invar alloys” have low thermal expansion and contraction with extreme temperature changes.
The new alloy and invar alloys developed are dubbed superelastic because they can become distorted and deformed with the ability to return to their original shape unassisted. The amount that the material can be distorted and the consistency in which it can revert to its original state is determined by the substance’s performance within a range of extreme temperatures. Unfortunately, most alloys only sustain their ability to return to form within severely limited temperature windows. Unless the compound tests well within a substantial window, it won’t be nearly as useful or reliable in industrial settings and commercial applications.
Unlike most alloys, the superelastic window of the Tohoku team’s newest discovery is nearly limitless. During thermal testing sessions, its superelastic window spanned 10 to 473 K (-263 C° to 200 C°) and maintained a low rate of thermal expansion. This temperature range is exponentially more broad than most comparable compounds and shows that the new alloy will remain superelastic in most natural settings. A strong, invariable material without natural thermal expansion could prove to be an invaluable compound across industries, including the aerospace industry, consumer electronics, and the medical industry.
Phys.org, “A Superelastic Alloy With A Nearly Limitless Temperature Window“ phys.org, August 2020, Accessed 27 August 2020.
Phys.org, “New lightweight shape-shifting alloy shows potential for a variety of applications“ phys.org, July 2016, Accessed 27 August 2020.
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