New Titanium Alloy Bends the Rules

BinaryForces writes "According to Yahoo Takashi Saito and his colleagues at the Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories in Japan have developed a super alloy with unheard of strength and flexibility. It's not only light, but it can be stretched to more than 2.5 times its original length and return to its previous size. Heat causes almost no expansion. It can be bent and straightened repeatedly without becoming brittle. And the cool part is it was developed using high power computation instead of the traditional trial and error method. More details at Nature's website."

Other applications?

[Tropaios]

The articles specifically mention use in ultralightweight springs, as one example, or other "precision instruments for use in rugged environments such as in outer space". My question is would this new alloy be so limited to these applications or could an alloy like this affect the design of buildings or bridges? Or have greater effect in making lightweight cars or other common products.

I am neither a metallugist or an engineer, but I could only imagine this being used in a few years for just about everything much as "aircraft aluminum" is used in making canoes and ski poles.

I'd think the uses for this could be very far reaching if it can be made affordable enough for common use. I see lighter more durable touring bikes, motorcycles, cars, planes from jets to gliders, to just about anything made of metal I'd suppose.

Are there any reasons why this metal wouldn't be a good choice for other applications?

This is cool

[dacarr]

Tey're already pondering more high-tech stuff, but what about optometry?

My own glasses are that Flexon stuff that you can practically tie in knots, but it doesn't hold original shape *too* well and will break after doing it a few hundred times. Now imagine glasses frames that are made of this stuff.

One Super Alloy?

[JHMartin]

"...their titanium-based alloys exhibit "super" properties, such as ultrahigh strength and super elasticity. The new materials could prove useful..." (emphasis added)

This sounds to me like they created multiple alloys with different properties and not a single miracle alloy with all of these properties. I may be wrong but since I cannot get through to read the nature story I can't tell for sure one way of the other.