Metal Observed “Healing” Itself on the Nanoscale – IOTW Report

Metal Observed “Healing” Itself on the Nanoscale

ScienceAlert

File this under ‘That’s not supposed to happen!’: Scientists observed a metal healing itself, something never seen before. If this process can be fully understood and controlled, we could be at the start of a whole new era of engineering.

A team from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M University was testing the resilience of the metal, using a specialized transmission electron microscope technique to pull the ends of the metal 200 times every second. They then observed the self-healing at ultra-small scales in a 40-nanometer-thick piece of platinum suspended in a vacuum. More

29 Comments on Metal Observed “Healing” Itself on the Nanoscale

  1. Man I can tell you some good stories about Sandia. Lets put things in perspective. They’re using a material that is one of the most dense, malleable, metals know to man, slice it way thinner than paper, tear it, and they’re surprised some of it flows back together? The should try the same experiment with pure Nickel. They’d be shocked.

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  2. @ Brad AT 7:16 PM

    Polish up two pieces of metal that are as perfectly flat as possible to get them. Place the polished surfaces in contact in an inert environment and they bond together. It’s a sub atomic process and the bond will be as though it were one piece of metal to begin with.

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  3. My metallurgy story goes back to when I was 21-22, no expertise in metallurgy. We were moving a junk pile rig from Point Thompson #2 to Point Thompson #3. And it was brutally cold. As normal procedures call for a 6-8 foot, 6-8” diameter pipe was attached to the wellhead. Welders wrote all the pertinent info on the marker and we were to leave it intact. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was -55F to -65F and we worked our ass off on that hole so as a parting gesture one of my buddies decided to give that well marker one last hit with a sledgehammer. The damn thing shattered like glass. Must have been some bad pipe, the heat from welding the info, followed by quite cold temperatures. Anyway, there were a couple pissed off people over that. I’ve seen some other examples of cold temps affecting metal, none of them healed themselves.

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  4. Completely different phenomenon – take a bar of stainless steel and wrap a rubber band tightly around it. Then put it in salt water. You will be amazed at how fast that rubber band cuts through that bar.

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  5. Jethro

    I’ve never heard of that one, but I can tell you stainless lathe chips come off so sharp you can cut your fingers to the bone and when you press the wound together it’s like it heals instantly. I’m not suggesting you try it ya understand.

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  6. The two worst materials I’ve ever machines were pure Nickel, and 1100 T0 Aluminum. Both dead soft. It’s like machining jello.
    And then of course there’s Inconel. Fuck Inconel.

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  7. I stuck a screwdriver in my forehead one time, by accident, mind you.

    My head healed up, but I never saw the screwdriver again. It was a, “dial turnscrew” as you fellow telco guys will remember. A cabinet tipped 10 inch called a KS 6854 turnscrew.

    I think I healed up on the nanoscale, but I may have actually died and don’t remember it, like that Jacob’s Ladder cat.

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  8. LOL!

    I fucked that room up. It looked like a murder scene. HAA!

    I sprayed the door with blood, the floor, 2 sinks, mirrors, prolly the ceiling.

    I even left bootprints in my own blood at my own murder scene.

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  9. The cops never called, so I guess I was ok. The poor bastard who had to clean it up probably still talks about it at Thanksgiving and Christmas parties. They prolly tell him he is full of shit. But I was there.

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  10. Joe6pak, you experienced what happens to metals when their temp drops below their ductile-brittle transition temperature.

    The first Liberty ships experienced hull cracks as the seawater temp was just above their hull steel d-b transition temp. After investigation the steel chemistry was modified to lower the d-b transition temp.

    Your Neighborhood Metallurgist

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