(PhysOrg.com) -- Shape-memory polymers are not a new discovery, as anyone who has played with Shrinky-Dinks or who has used heat-shrink tubing for wires in an electronic circuit can testify. But now, thanks to new analysis ...
Materials Science
Dec 6, 2010
0
0
It can be used to cool or heat the air in a room or to cool or heat liquids. And it looks like something that Q—the tech specialist and gadgeteer in the James Bond films—might have come up with. The prototype device, ...
General Physics
Mar 13, 2019
0
27
Karl A. Gschneidner Jr., a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, today cautioned members of a Congressional panel that "rare-earth research in the USA on mineral extraction, rare-earth separation, ...
Materials Science
Mar 16, 2010
6
1
Sometimes solving the biggest challenges begins with understanding something very small -- like the tiny grains that form a piece of metal. For a team of scientists who wanted to improve automotive fuel efficiency, understanding ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 14, 2011
1
0
It looks quite inconspicuous to the casual beholder, hardly like groundbreaking innovation: a small metallic chessboard, four millimeters long on either side. At first glance, it shines like polished steel; at second glance, ...
Materials Science
Jun 12, 2020
1
190
(Phys.org)—Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed elastic, self-healing wires in which both the liquid-metal core and the polymer sheath reconnect at the molecular level after being severed.
Nanomaterials
Jan 23, 2013
2
0
Industry uses platinum alloys as catalysts for oxygen reduction, essential in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, among other applications. Expensive and rare, that metal imposes tight restrictions on manufacture. Researchers ...
Materials Science
Oct 24, 2018
6
489
The U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory has discovered extreme "bounce," or super-elastic shape-memory properties in a material that could be applied for use as an actuator in the harshest of conditions, such as outer ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 23, 2017
1
22
Ever since the Bronze Age, metals have been cast in different shapes for different applications. Smooth surfaces that are resistant to corrosion are crucial for many of the present-day uses of cast metals, ranging from bio-implants ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 25, 2013
0
0
Imagine untwisting a finger-size spring, then holding the flame from a lighter underneath the unraveled section. Like magic, it twirls itself into a spring again because the metal alloy remembered its original shape.
Condensed Matter
Aug 27, 2013
0
0
