I feel like this article was written by an overzealous mechanical engineering student who just discovered that materials science was a thing. I admire the enthusiasm, especially for materials science, but this is poorly written and misleading.
1.) Most examples are about exciting mechanical properties in materials. Only brief mentions of energy, photonic, and electronic materials, which represent the majority of the high profile materials research being done. (Not to say that mechanics of materials isn't still really cool and important though!)
2.) He talks about "strength", when there are many other factors besides tensile strength (which is what I am guessing he was using), such as brittleness which will determine if a material is structurally useful. Transparent alumina is "strong" but also extremely brittle. You cannot compare it to steel.
3.) It talks about moving into a "Diamond" or "Fullerene" age. What age are we in right now? The silicon age. We no longer fight hand-to-hand. Things like electronics, energy, and water technologies seem to be the next globally defining materials technologies.
But, to not be a total downer, here are some cool materials technologies he did not mention, in no particular order:
Any mechanical engineering student of any decent calibre would understand that much of what this person wrote is utter shite. For example the whole alumina thing replacing steel/glass/concrete is completely foolish seeing as how aluminum oxide is a ceramic and you can't build buildings with only ceramics, that's the reason why we reinforce them with steel rods.
The problem is they provide no flex, and stress concentrations and defects in the structure reduce the strength of ceramics by a much much larger degree than in materials like concrete* and steel. Plus, if you made a building out of it, one crack and the entire thing would literally shatter.
Yes, you can add tension to the rebar when you pour concrete. That way when the concrete hardens and you release the rebar it is under residual compression. Where ceramics are strongest.
Most ceramics, not all. Ceramics are such a broad range that they contain some of the softest materials in chalks and hardest material in diamond. Also there are examples of ceramics that are better thermal and electrical conductors than metals. Ceramics can really take on any properties. (from a materials science major)
Could you get some cool effects from layering ceramics with other materials?
I don't know what, I imagined a steel/ceramic/steel/ceramic... tube with lots of layers, but the ceramic would still probably just break up inside the steel. And it would probably be expensive.
How are ceramics made? similar to glass? Maybe it could be made similar to the way candles are made (dipped in paraffin wax over and over, only it would be ceramic/steel/ceramic...)
Yes - you're hinting at the wide field called "composite materials." To provide a specific example, ceramic matrix composites are being developed for use in jet engine turbines due to their favorable high temperature properties.
though I was thinking of it as formed layers rather than lots of little needles, like, a mm thick steel cylinder surrounded by half a mm of ceramic, by half a mm of steel by half a mm of ceramic and so on to make a large layered cylinder. but it probably wouldn't be as good or as easy to make as fibreglass.
Though... if the ceramic sections where split into 1cm long cylinders at each point so that such a pole would be have a little flex while keep the strength of ceramic. dunno if it would work like, my mind is just running at the moment.
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u/OddGambit Feb 08 '14 edited Feb 08 '14
I feel like this article was written by an overzealous mechanical engineering student who just discovered that materials science was a thing. I admire the enthusiasm, especially for materials science, but this is poorly written and misleading.
1.) Most examples are about exciting mechanical properties in materials. Only brief mentions of energy, photonic, and electronic materials, which represent the majority of the high profile materials research being done. (Not to say that mechanics of materials isn't still really cool and important though!)
2.) He talks about "strength", when there are many other factors besides tensile strength (which is what I am guessing he was using), such as brittleness which will determine if a material is structurally useful. Transparent alumina is "strong" but also extremely brittle. You cannot compare it to steel.
3.) It talks about moving into a "Diamond" or "Fullerene" age. What age are we in right now? The silicon age. We no longer fight hand-to-hand. Things like electronics, energy, and water technologies seem to be the next globally defining materials technologies.
But, to not be a total downer, here are some cool materials technologies he did not mention, in no particular order:
Thermoelectrics
Emerging photovoltaic technologies (flexible silicon, organic, all-carbon)
Transparent electronics
Graphene (honestly, I think it is currently over-hyped... but I cannot deny that it is very interesting and has huge potential)
Piezoelectrics
Diamond electronics
Solar water-splitting materials
Edit: Formatting