Researchers have made some incredible advances across a range of materials — metals, plastics, paper, composites and more — enabling today’s designers to take advantage of super-strong materials.

Mighty Metals
Bearings play a crucial role across various mechanical devices, from vehicles to machine tools to robots. Manufacturing bearings with true roundness is a technology unto itself, but now there is a new martensitic-hardened steel that has been developed for rolling bearings, offering maximum corrosion resistance under extreme conditions, including dry running applications or when bearings are in contact with such aggressive factors as water, acids and cleaning agents.

Martensitic grades of stainless steel are developed to provide a group of stainless alloys that would be both resistant to corrosion and able to be hardened by heat treating. These grades are mainly used where hardness, strength and wear resistance are required. Although martensitic bearing steels containing chromium and nitrogen have been known for some years, Schaeffler says its formulation offers very high hardness and maximum corrosion resistance through its chemical composition, in combination with a new thermochemical surface layer treatment process, according to Eureka Magazine.

“Cronitect is therefore able to withstand extreme conditions, including salt spray testing in accordance with DIN 50021 SS without any problems, even after 600 hours,” Hub reports.

In another new development, thanks to scientists working at Sandia National Laboratories, stronger super-alloys are on the horizon.

“These specialized alloys are exceptionally strong, lightweight and able to withstand extremes that would destroy everyday metals like steel and aluminum,” according to a statement from the laboratory.

As part of Sandia’s nanoscale research, a group of experts specializing in inorganic synthesis and characterization, modeling and radiation science are shaping the future of super-alloy materials by advancing the science behind how those super-alloys are made. In this case, the group — equipped with an in-house gamma irradiation facility and ion beam materials research laboratory — has designed a system of experiments to study the science of creating metal and alloy nanoparticles.

Single gold nanoparticle crystals formed using radiolysis at Sandia’s Gamma Irradiation Facility
Credit: Sandia National Laboratories

Earlier, depending on the combination of reactants, dose and dose rate of radiation, researchers have been able to create nanometer-sized particles of gold in various shapes, including spheres, rods and pyramids. The lightweight, corrosion-resistant materials that the team is creating could be applied to weapons casings, gas turbine engines, satellites, aircraft and power plants.

Powerful Plastics
Far from Sandia, scientists have invented “a nano-sheet polymer that is transparent and strong as steel,” according to The University of Michigan, where the researchers can be found.

The new material results from alternate layers of clay nano-sheets and a water-soluble polymer “that share similar chemistry with ordinary white glue.” Some of the strength comes from offsetting the seams of the layers. Potential applications, with further development, include lighter and stronger armor for soldiers or police and their vehicles, reports United Press International. “It could also be used in microelectromechanical devices, microfluidics, biomedical sensors and valves and unmanned aircraft,” according to engineering professor Nicholas Kotov (who almost dubbed the new material “plastic steel.”)

Robust Composites
By stacking layers of ceramic cloth with interlocking nanotubes in between, a team of researchers has created new composites with significantly improved properties compared with traditional materials, according to Nature Materials (via AZOM.com):

Tests showed that both the thermal and electrical conductivity of the new composites were significantly improved, which means they could potentially be employed as sensors to monitor crack propagation in various structures, the researchers note.

Although interest in composites for automobiles began over a decade ago to improve mileage through weight reduction, composites have gained momentum more recently in that they form the main material of Boeing’s new 787 wings because of the material’s strength and light weight.

Moreover, as we noted in August, the accuracy of orbiting instruments depends on “skillfully designed and manufactured composite components” because of their superior strength- and stiffness-to-weight and low coefficient of thermal expansion.

Papercrete, etc.
Last year and earlier this year, we discussed graphene and its overlapping layers of one-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb-like hexagons. (In contrast, graphite, which becomes powdery under pressure, is made of graphene sheets stacked one on top of the other.) Now researchers refer to this sheet as paper, noting that “graphene is the toughest material in the world — tougher than diamond.”

A filtration step in the process results in lots of graphene. “By adjusting the concentration of graphite oxide in water, researchers changed the thickness of the paper, ranging from 1 to 100 micrometers.

According to MIT’s Technology Review:

Using graphite — the black flaky stuff employed in pencils — researchers at Northwestern University have created a strong, flexible and lightweight paper-like material. It could be used as electrolytes or hydrogen storage materials in fuel cells, electrodes in supercapacitors and batteries, and super-thin chemical filters.

“It can also be mixed with polymers or metals to make materials for aircraft fuselages, cars and buildings,” notes the MIT publication.

A cross-section after fracture of a paper-material comprised of individual and layered sheets of graphene oxide. This is a scanning electron microscope image, scale bar is 1 micrometer in length. The inset shows a strip of this graphene oxide paper held with metal tweezers.
Credit: Dmitriy Dikin, via Science Daily

While scientists test and design new variants of this special new-age paper, researchers with a much more focused approach suspect a mixture of conventional waste paper and concrete might serve well as a building material, reports MSN.

Dubbed “papercrete,” the industrial-strength paper m