Engineers from the University of California, San Diego, the University of South California and the California Institute of Technology have been investing their time to develop a new kind of steel that would be strong enough to survive damage without being significantly deformed, according to Design-Engineering.
The steel is being called SAM2X5-630 and is an “amorphous steel alloy” that is cheap to make but a solid steel that has never been seen before. Made up of atom arrangements that contradict steel formations of the past.
It is breaking elasticity limits of steel alloys, the researchers say. They say the alloy can survive pressure up to 12.5 giga-Pascals. This would translate to 125,000 atmospheres.
Olivia Graeve, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, said, “Because these materials are designed to withstand extreme conditions, you can process them under extreme conditions carefully.”
The researchers conducted experiments that saw the alloys react to shock by shooting the steel with a gas gun with copper disc ‘bullets’ at 500 to 1300 meters per second. The researchers say that the alloys were deformed but more protected than any other steel would have been and it was not permanently damaged.
Is this the steel of the future? We will keep your eyes on it.