Automotive

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New & Improved Titanium Alloy for Lighter Vehicle Parts

An improved titanium alloy - stronger than any commercial titanium alloy currently on the market - gets its strength from the novel way atoms are arranged to form a special nanostructure. For the first time, researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been able to see this alignment and then manipulate it to make the strongest titanium alloy ever developed, along with a lower cost process. The material is an excellent candidate for producing lighter vehicle parts. Using powerful electron microscopes and a unique atom probe imaging approach, the researchers were able to peer deep inside the alloy's nanostructure to see what was happening. Once they understood the nanostructure, they were able to create the strongest titanium alloy ever made.