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Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

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11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

#11
post #3

Wow amateur metallurgist sounds like a hardcore hobby.

People have the weirdest hobbies. Have a look at this guy: http://www.themysteryworld.com/2011/02/tatara-project-guy-ma... Making knives starting from the very scratch (that is, making their own steel to start with)

Fascinating article, thanks.

Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

#14

Just in case anyone is leaping to wrong conclusions: This is neat, but it's not a miracle material. Tensile strength of 1900MPa is quite high for a steel, but it's half as strong as glass fiber. The big advantage here is that it's tougher, and cheaper to make, than fiberglass composite.

Er, what conclusion is there to jump to other than an accurate one? It's 7% stronger than traditional steel and 30% lighter, with a greatly decreased manufacturing cost. Ok, fine, it's not a "miracle" material since it's not curing the sick or raising the dead. But as long as testing continues to support the conclusion of both the manufacturer and researchers at tOSU (and elsewhere), this seems like an impressive eng…

The title is ridiculous though, didn't they use science to make stronger steel or did they make them out of magic?

Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, what conclusion is there to jump to other than an accurate one? It's 7% stronger than traditional steel and 30% lighter, with a greatly decreased manufacturing cost. Ok, fine, it's not a "miracle" material since it's not curing the sick or raising the dead. But as long as testing continues to support the conclusion of both the manufacturer and researchers at tOSU (and elsewhere), this seems like an impressive eng…

The title is ridiculous though, didn't they use science to make stronger steel or did they make them out of magic?

I'm sure the title meant professional, established scientists, not that he didn't use the scientific method.

Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

#18

Just in case anyone is leaping to wrong conclusions: This is neat, but it's not a miracle material. Tensile strength of 1900MPa is quite high for a steel, but it's half as strong as glass fiber. The big advantage here is that it's tougher, and cheaper to make, than fiberglass composite.

Er, what conclusion is there to jump to other than an accurate one? It's 7% stronger than traditional steel and 30% lighter, with a greatly decreased manufacturing cost. Ok, fine, it's not a "miracle" material since it's not curing the sick or raising the dead. But as long as testing continues to support the conclusion of both the manufacturer and researchers at tOSU (and elsewhere), this seems like an impressive eng…

Whole careers are made on improving some existing process by a few percent. Kudos to that guy.

Re: Detroit DIYer cooks up stronger, lighter steel, shames scientists

#20
post #3

Wow amateur metallurgist sounds like a hardcore hobby.

People have the weirdest hobbies. Have a look at this guy: http://www.themysteryworld.com/2011/02/tatara-project-guy-ma... Making knives starting from the very scratch (that is, making their own steel to start with)

And actually, if hacking with computers wasn't so common, it would be perceived as quite awesome, too.
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