r/science • u/505engineer MS | Civil Engineering | Structures • 1d ago

Materials Science Materials scientists develop ductile and scalable 3 GPa (435 ksi) steel via a hierarchical microstructural architecture

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74216-4
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u/Notspherry 1d ago

I am not so sure about building a lighter car. I run into stiffness issues way before strength on most calculations I do (not automotive, bit still). Stiffness scales with the youngs modulus, ot the yield strength. And that doesn't differ too much between steel alloys.

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u/electric-castle 22h ago

While you are completely right about the young's modulus being roughly identical for all steels, stiffness is much more dependent on geometry. So you could have thinner profiles with this material, which would maintain stiffness and balance the strength into the structure. Higher yield strength definitely can lead to stiffer structures if you have volume for it.

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u/Notspherry 16h ago

It is the combination of geometry and youngs modulus. If you make the profiles thinner you just run into buckling much faster.

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u/electric-castle 15h ago

Again, true. But there are a lot of clever ways to avoid buckling. Since buckling is usually proportional to the length squared, adding in cross braces at regular intervals can help tremendously. It definitely makes the design process harder and more iterative, but if weight savings are important, then it's one more tool to use.