Magic materials
relationship at the mid-span, strains on the surface of the concrete beam and cracking width for different loads are also measured. Companies investigate the application of smart materials in structural engineering.
Advances in abundance
There are tremendous opportunities that enable companies to sustain the development of renewable energies in the 21st century. Specific advances in materials and manufacturing can deliver significant energy, environmental, and economic impacts to businesses in as soon as 2–10 years. The opportunities
are equivalent to about one-third of all CO2 emissions generated by the US industrial sector, and eliminate US$65 billion in unproductive energy expenditures by American businesses every year. If this is successful, it could well be taken across to other nations. The opportunities identified are enormous. Companies are looking out for materials and manufacturing breakthroughs that can make manufacturing more energy efficient, productive and profitable. Other emerging technologies can also help to reinvent energy-efficient transportation, capture more benefit from existing
New Engineering Materials in Piranha-proof Armour The Arapaima fish is one such fish, which swims in a swarm of piranhas. The reason it does not get affected is its intricately designed scales, which is providing ‘bioinspiration’ for engineers looking to develop flexible ceramics. In a lab experiment, piranhas were pitted against Arapaima by using a machine that resembles an industrial-strength whole punch. Piranha teeth were attached to the top ‘punch’, which was pressed down into Arapaima scales embedded in a soft rubber surface (which mimics the soft underlying muscle on the fish) on the lower ‘punch’. The teeth could partially penetrate the scale, but cracked before they could puncture the muscle. The scales of the Arapaima unite a heavily mineralised outer layer with an internal design that helps the scale resist the pirahna’s razor-like bite. The mix of materials is similar to the hard enamel of a tooth deposited over softer dentin. It’s a combination that engineers would like to reproduce for applications such as soldiers’ body armour, which needs to be both tough and flexible. Other applications might include fuel cells, insulation and aerospace designs. that new-age engineering materials provide are powerful in all aspects. More than 100 experts from a cross-section of professional societies representing more than 75,000 scientists and engineers have participated in various aspects of a recent study, which examined the materials and manufacturing advances that will ensure clean energy in the future. The recent study identified 54 specific opportunities that could save more than 2,800 trillion British thermal units of energy every year. This amount is more than the total amount of US energy provided by wind, solar, biomass waste and geothermal. The study also emphasised on the new opportunities as these would also help avoid 435 million tonne of CO2 emissions, which
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energy sources and capitalise on all available and emerging energy sources.
What’s the Latest Development?
Differently shaped nanoparticles are being tested using computer simulation. This is done for determining how nanoparticles naturally form patterns and possibly create entirely new materials. Some of the shapes assembled into regular crystals—lattices in which each particle has a fixed position and orientation—and some formed plastic crystals or liquid crystals. In a plastic crystal, each particle has a fixed position within the lattice, but can rotate; a liquid crystal, on the other hand, contains particles with correlated orientations, but fungible positions.
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What’s the Big Idea?
Advertising any new idea is of primeval importance. When scientists explore new engineering materials, they are often not able to market it properly and therefore, a good invention gets unnoticed by the industries. Recently, a new material has been invented in 145 distinct polyhedral shapes, which are three-dimensional structures formed by a series of planar faces. Materials science and physics, say that companies should also invest in the designing of entirely new engineering materials. Companies are always on the lookout for new engineering materials but they are not eager to spend money on it. The new materials could be used in nano-sized engineering projects to create super-strong, super-efficient materials at a microscopic level. Such kind of research is like to be the ‘Holy Grail’ of materials science. Researchers should be able to just look at a building block and be able to predict all kinds of crystal structures that would be stable with it.
Where does the future lie?
While new-age engineering materials are created using natural elements, they are also developed in labs. Companies are ready for innovation, but they are not ready to shell out the cash required for any such R&D activity. Companies are mostly not wrong in their view. It is the attitude of the users that needs to change. Often, companies introduce something new, which is better but the users are not ready to buy it as they are content with the present one. This hampers the company’s intentions of spending on R&D as they end up spending on the existing product itself. Thus, the user also needs to look out for newer innovations and be ready to spend on the same. If such a system evolves, then companies will be able to come up with new and better engineering materials. prateek.sur@network18publishing.com