We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford first declared “You can have any color, so long as it’s black.” Nowadays, we expect nothing less than the ability to customize everything from our TV schedule to our mobile phones; personalization and customization are king and springs are no exception.
The range of functions that springs can perform within different industries makes them the perfect example of how materials can be manipulated in order to perform multiple applications. However, it wasn’t always that way.To understand how springs can now be customized for a range of projects, it’s important to look at how advanced they have become since their beginnings, as well as gaze toward the future to analyze certain expectations.
Read more about the past, present and future of springs including how graphene will play a part.
Magnesium has a number of potential advantages when it comes to engineering. It is considered the lightest of structural metals (those capable of bearing loads in buildings and cars) and it is the eighth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. On the flipside, however, it is not as strong and durable as some of its counterparts. Scientists are now reporting to have overcome its main limitations by infusing it with silicon carbide nanoparticles to form a new type of super-strong composite material, which they claim may lead to lighter and more efficient airplanes, spacecraft and cars.
Read more about how silicon carbide nanparticles increase strength and stiffness-to-weight ratios.
Back in 2011, we wrote about a fascinating new way to heat-treat regular, cheap steel to endow it with an almost miraculous blend of characteristics. Radically cheaper, quicker and less energy-intensive to produce, Flash Bainite is stronger than titanium by weight, and ductile enough to be pressed into shape while cold without thinning or cracking. It’s now being tested by three of the world’s five largest car manufacturers, who are finding they can produce thinner structural car components that are between 30-50 percent lighter and cheaper than the steel they’ve been using, while maintaining the same performance is crash tests. Those are revolutionary numbers in the auto space.
Darren Quick did a good job explaining exactly how Flash Bainite is produced in our original story, but in basic terms, you take regular, off-the-shelf AISI1020 carbon steel, and instead of heat treating it for 10 minutes like costly alloyed steel, you put it through a roller-driven system that induction-heats and liquid-cools the steel in a matter of 10 seconds or so.
Read more about Flash Banite and its potential and growing use in the automotive industry.
Gears are a common component of modern machinery, found in gearheads, watches, motors, furnaces, and automation equipment. Due to the ease of manufacturing and the variety of alloys available, metal alloys are the most common material used for gears. However, alternatives are available: ceramic and metal injection molding offer higher strengths and other properties that make them desirable.
Read more about the advantages of various metal gears, ceramic gears, and the growing use of possible use of metallic glass as a future replacement material.
Finding Aerospace Materials Standards (AMS) can be a bit daunting if you haven’t done it frequently. AMS Standards are maintained by SAE International and some of the most common heat treat standards, those dealing with pyrometry (AMS 2750) can be found at this link.
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