Gizmorama - August 30, 2017

Good Morning,

Mechanical engineers have made a breakthrough with the creation of ultra-high strength steel. Think of the possibilities...

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Breakthrough made in ultra-high strength steel --*
A team of mechanical engineers has developed a super steel called D & P Steel to improve the strength-ductility trade-off.

Aerospace, automotive and defense applications need metallic materials with ultra-high strength, and in some high-loading structural applications metallic materials also need to have large ductility and high toughness to allow for the precise forming of structural components and avoid catastrophic failure.

A problem that has plagued engineers is that increasing the strength of steel often leads to a decrease in ductility, known as a strength-ductility trade-off.

A team of mechanical engineers from Hong Kong, Beijing and Taiwan has developed a Super Steel called D&P Steel to address the strength-ductility trade-off. The material cost is one-fifth of steel used in current aerospace and defense applications, the engineers say.

The study, published Aug. 24 in Science, showed a way to develop a strong and ductile breakthrough steel to improve ductility of metallic materials when their yield strength is beyond 2 Gigapascal, or GPa.

D&P Steel has achieved the unprecedented yield strength of 2.2 GPa and uniform elongation of 16 percent, the engineers report, in addition to the super steel having low raw materials cost and simple industrial processing.

It also outperformed nanotwinned steel, which was also developed by the same research team and demonstrated the best combination of yield strength and uniform elongation among all existing high-strength metallic materials up to its creation.



*- Researchers develop new light-sensitive crystalline material -*
Scientists have discovered a new family of perovskites capable of changing shape in reaction to light.

Most researchers have focused on the ability of perovskite crystals to harvest energy from sunlight. But as the latest research reveals, the crystalline material also exhibits a quality known as photostriction.

Photostriction describes an increase in internal strain triggered by exposure to light. The strain alters the material's internal structure and changes the material's shape.

Scientists studied the photostriction of a perovskite called MAPbBr3. Researchers used Raman spectroscopy to measure the material's internal molecular vibrations as it was exposed to light. Their analysis revealed an especially strong photostriction reaction.

"We demonstrated that in situ Raman spectroscopy with confocal microscopy is a powerful characterization tool for conveniently measuring intrinsic photoinduced lattice deformation," Tzu-Chiao Wei, a researcher at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, said in a news release. "The same approach could be applied to measure photostriction in other materials."

Researchers determined that the perovskite's photostriction reaction is partially triggered by its photovoltaic effect, the effect that makes it so valuable to solar panels. When exposed to light, the material's ions begin to move and the perovskite generates positive and negative charges.

Scientists described the new class of perovskites and its photostriction capabilities in a paper published this week in the journal Advanced Materials.

"We will use this material to fabricate next-generation optoelectronic devices, including wireless remote switchable devices and other light-controlled applications," Wei said.

***
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