Century Old Materials Mystery Solved: Grain Boundary Formation Shows Similarities Of Metal And Glass

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 10:28 in Physics & Chemistry

Stress and strain research got a boost thanks to research from NIST, where scientists have recently found evidence of an important similarity between the behavior of polycrystalline materials, like metals and ceramics, and glasses. Most metals and ceramics used in manufacturing are polycrystals. The steel in a bridge girder is formed from innumerable tiny metal crystals that grew together in a patchwork as the molten steel cooled and solidified. Each crystal, or “grain,” is highly ordered on the inside, but in the thin boundaries it shares with the grains around it, the molecules are quite disorderly. read more

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