Materials & Coatings

Metals

Learn what’s trending in the engineering metals used in 3D printing, military, medical devices, automotive, and manufacturing. Find the latest applications that design engineers are using to meet their design challenges.

Stories

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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
For many highly stressed engineering applications like bearings and gears, contaminated steel parts can lead to devastating outcomes such as an emergency shutdown or the end of a mission. Ensuring that these critical...
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Articles: RF & Microwave Electronics
The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. In the past 16 years, the annual contest has drawn more than 13,000 product...
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Products: Software
Data Acquisition Devices The USB-1808 Series simultaneous-sampling data acquisition devices from Measurement Computing Corp., Norton, MA, provides synchronous and concurrent voltage I/O, waveform output,...
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Facility Focus: Photonics/Optics
Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, IA. For more than 70...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Engineers and software developers are seeking to create technology that lets users touch, grasp, and manipulate virtual objects while feeling like they are actually touching something in the...
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Briefs: Medical
Printable metal tags have been developed that could be attached to everyday objects to turn them into “smart” Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The tags are made from patterns...
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Blog: Transportation
Professor Hart spoke with Tech Briefs about why his team's new battery may someday find its way beyond niche applications and into electric vehicles.
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Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping
DON’T MELT. MELD.™ The MELD™ technology enables additive manufacturing (AM) of metals. This patented process is unique because there is no...
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Briefs: Imaging
Cellphones, laptops, tablets, and many other electronics rely on their internal metallic circuits to process information at high speed. Current metal fabrication techniques tend...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Most metals, with the notable exception of gold, tend to oxidize when exposed to air and water. This reaction — which produces rust on iron, tarnish on silver, and verdigris on copper or...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Piezoelectric Resonator with Two Layers
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) filters have advantages in being able to reduce the size, weight, and power required when used as part of electronic systems such as radios; however, MEMS-type filters have limitations. For example, thickness MEMS-type filters (e.g., thickness-extensional mode...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Current density is the amount of electrical current per cross-sectional area at a given point. As transistors in integrated circuits become smaller and smaller, they need higher and higher...
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News: Energy
DETECTING PLASTIC LANDMINES Hidden PFM-1 anti-personnel landmines are unexploded ordnance (UXO) devices that pose a difficult challenge to conventional landmine...
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Articles: Energy
ISCAD — ELECTRICAL DRIVE WITH 0% RARE EARTHS, 25% HIGHER DRIVING RANGE, AND 100% SAFETY Conventional electrical machines suffer from the problem that due to...
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Articles: Electronics & Computers
ALUMINUM-POWERED ELECTRICITY GENERATION Aluminum has an incredibly high energy density — double that of gasoline and an order of magnitude greater than lithium-ion....
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Articles: Propulsion
NASA at 60: Celebrating Success
Over the past 60 years, NASA scientists and engineers have developed many advanced technologies and processes. But NASA has also partnered with industry, using commercially available products to complete its missions. Here, some of those companies join NASA in celebrating these collaborative successes.
Briefs: Materials
Researchers have demonstrated the ability to create amorphous metal (metallic glass) alloys on large scales using 3D printing technology. Metallic glasses lack the crystalline...
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Briefs: Materials
When hit with light, semiconductors (materials that have an electrical resistance in between that of metals and insulators) generate an electric current....
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Briefs: Aerospace
High-Kinetic-Energy Penetrator Shielding and High-Wear-Resistance Materials Fabricated with Boron Nitride Nanotubes and BNNT Polymer Composites
In recent years, anti-penetration materials have been more widely used for armor, bulletproof vests, and micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection layers for space-suits, space vehicles, and structures....
Special Reports: Aerospace
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Lightweighting - September 2018
Demands for weight reduction and better fuel efficiency in the automotive and aerospace industries are driving design innovations and the development of new lightweight, high-strength materials. To help you keep...

Blog: Photonics/Optics
Instead of attaching semiconductors to fabric, an MIT team has found a way to add the technology right into the fiber themselves.
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INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
UCLA scientists and engineers have developed a new process for assembling semiconductor devices. The advance could lead to much more...
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
The unique capabilities of soft robots are to bend, deform, stretch, twist, or squeeze in all the ways that conventional rigid robots cannot. Today, it is easy to envision a world in...
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Briefs: Nanotechnology
Silver nanowires have drawn significant interest in recent years for use in many applications ranging from prosthetic devices to wearable health sensors due to their flexibility,...
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Liquid metal printing is integral to the flexible electronics field. Additive manufacturing enables fast fabrication of intricate designs and circuitry. The field features a...
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Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Presented by the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) has been the premier manufacturing technology show in the Northern Hemisphere. IMTS is held every even...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In the early years of manned flight, wing warping was used for lateral control of an aircraft. This technique consisted of a system of pulleys and cables used to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Marine-grade stainless steel is valued for its performance under corrosive environments, and for its high ductility — the ability to bend without breaking under stress. But conventional techniques...
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Briefs: Energy
Lithium-metal batteries — which can hold up to ten times more charge than lithium-ion batteries — haven't been commercialized because of a fatal flaw: as the batteries charge and...
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