According to foreign media reports, a research team at the University of California, Los Angeles, has recently developed an ultra-high-strength, very light metal wear-resistant plate material. They used a new method to disperse and stabilize nanoparticles into molten magnesium.
This new metal wear-resistant plate material is magnesium added with densely dispersed nano-silicon carbide particles. It can be used to manufacture light aircraft, spacecraft and automobiles, helping to improve fuel efficiency, and can also be used in mobile phone electronics and biomedical equipment manufacturing. field. It is reported that in order to create ultra-high-strength, lightweight metal materials, the research team discovered a new method to disperse and stabilize nanoparticles in molten metal materials. At the same time, they also developed a scalable manufacturing method for making more Lightweight metal for efficient performance.
At present, this latest research report was published in the recently published "Nature" magazine.
Li Xiaochun, the leader of the research project, and Raytheon Chair of the Department of Manufacturing Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, pointed out that nanoparticles can truly increase the strength of metals without damaging their plasticity, especially lightweight ones like magnesium. metals, but so far no research group has been able to disperse ceramic nanoparticles in molten metals. Based on instilling physical properties and material processing processes, we finally improved metal properties by instilling dense nanoparticles, confirming a new method to enhance metal properties.
Structural metal is a load-bearing metal used in the construction industry and automobile manufacturing. Magnesium is only two-thirds the density of aluminum and is the lightest structural metal. Silicon carbide is a super-hard ceramic material commonly used to make industrial blades. Currently, this latest technology infuses a large number of silicon carbide particles (less than 100 nanometers in diameter) into the molten magnesium metal, thereby significantly improving the metal's strength, stiffness, plasticity and durability at high temperatures.
Scientists have long believed that ceramic particles could potentially make metals harder, but microscopic particles lose their plasticity during the infusion process. In contrast, nanoscale particles can significantly increase strength or improve the plasticity of metals, but nanoceramic particles tend to clump together rather than disperse evenly because small particles tend to attract each other. To eliminate this problem, the researchers dispersed the nanoparticles in a molten magnesium-zinc alloy. They relied on the kinetic energy of particle motion to disperse each other. This would stabilize the uniform dispersion of the nanoparticles and avoid agglomeration.
In order to further enhance the strength of this new metal wear-resistant plate material, the researchers used a technique called high-pressure torsion compression. Currently, 14% of this new metal material is silicon carbide nanoparticles and 86% is magnesium-zinc alloy.
