Scientists Create the World's Toughest Self-Healing Material (interestingengineering.com) 19
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: [Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata] along with those at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur decided to focus on developing something that is harder than conventional self-healing material, as reported by The Telegraph India. The researchers used a piezoelectric organic material, which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy and vice versa, to make needle-shaped crystals that aren't more than 2 mm long or 0.2 mm wide, according to the experimental results which were published in the journal Science. Due to their molecular arrangement in the specially designed crystals, a strong attractive force developed between two surfaces. Every time a fracture occurred, the attractive forces joined the pieces back again, without needing an external stimulus such as heat or others that most self-healing materials would need.
"Our self-healing material is 10 times harder than others, and it has a well-ordered internal crystalline structure, that is favored in most electronics and optical applications," lead researcher Professor Chilla Malla Reddy of IISER said. "I can imagine applications for an everyday device," said Bhanu Bhushan Khatua, a member of the team from IIT Kharagpur." Such materials could be used for mobile phone screens that will repair themselves if they fall and develop cracks."
"Our self-healing material is 10 times harder than others, and it has a well-ordered internal crystalline structure, that is favored in most electronics and optical applications," lead researcher Professor Chilla Malla Reddy of IISER said. "I can imagine applications for an everyday device," said Bhanu Bhushan Khatua, a member of the team from IIT Kharagpur." Such materials could be used for mobile phone screens that will repair themselves if they fall and develop cracks."
terminators (Score:2)
terminators
Hardness != thoughness (Score:4, Interesting)
Usually the two are pretty much mutually exclusive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hardness != thoughness (Score:5, Informative)
They are not opposites, they are independent traits to an object.
You can have an object is not hard nor tough. Think of a cheap plastic that will scratch easily and break with little force.
Then you may go up to say a quality stainless ateel, that is difficult to scratch, however after a good amount of force it may bend but not break.
While a Diamond is the worlds hardest material, however it isn't so tough as it will shatter rather easily, however it isn't proportionally fragile to its hardness either.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. But the thing is there are often connections. These parameters are not independent in typical materials. This is most obvious when you "harden" a metal or when you "soften" some plastic. Both actions shift these two parameters in opposite directions.
My point is that to understand a change in a material property, you need to look at the very least at changes in hardness _and_ toughness. You may want others as well, depending on application. So claiming "harder" or "tougher" is pretty meaningless without
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The rest of your post may be right, but a sand castle is not hard, even if individual grains of sand are.
Hardness is meaningless when there is no toughness. A sand-castle is both exceptionally hard and not hard at all because it immediately goes into non-elastic deformation.
Applications for things beyond screens ... (Score:1)
... surely?
Real content is pay-walled :(.
Other ideas: ... maybe I am just concerned that if it doesn't match to the reader's mobile phones then folks don't "see" the relevance of the science?
* multiple layers of this stuff on space craft?
* usage in rotors for small aircraft (drones, etc)?
* lots of others
Re:Applications for things beyond screens ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Would be great for car windshields / windows. No more rock chipped/cracked windshields to replace.
With windshields getting thinner to save weight to improve MPG, they seem to be more prone to rock damage.
The article mentions glass. Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
An evil plan to sell phones! (Score:2)
All's well -- until you place two phones fact-to-face and they heal together.
Go ahead, try to split them apart...
Just imagine touching those! (Score:2)
Virtuosity (Score:2)
Comment (Score:2)