Scientists Engineer New Material That Can Absorb and Release Enormous Amounts of Energy (phys.org) 49
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had engineered a new rubber-like solid substance that has surprising qualities. It can absorb and release very large quantities of energy. And it is programmable. Taken together, this new material holds great promise for a very wide array of applications, from enabling robots to have more power without using additional energy, to new helmets and protective materials that can dissipate energy much more quickly.
"Imagine a rubber band," says Alfred Crosby, professor of polymer science and engineering at UMass Amherst and the paper's senior author. "You pull it back, and when you let it go, it flies across the room. Now imagine a super rubber band. When you stretch it past a certain point, you activate extra energy stored in the material. When you let this rubber band go, it flies for a mile." This hypothetical rubber band is made out of a new metamaterial -- a substance engineered to have a property not found in naturally occurring materials -- that combines an elastic, rubber-like substance with tiny magnets embedded in it. This new "elasto-magnetic" material takes advantage of a physical property known as a phase shift to greatly amplify the amount of energy the material can release or absorb.
A phase shift occurs when a material moves from one state to another: think of water turning into steam or liquid concrete hardening into a sidewalk. Whenever a material shifts its phase, energy is either released or absorbed. And phase shifts aren't just limited to changes between liquid, solid and gaseous states -- a shift can occur from one solid phase to another. A phase shift that releases energy can be harnessed as a power source, but getting enough energy has always been the difficult part. "To amplify energy release or absorption, you have to engineer a new structure at the molecular or even atomic level," says Crosby. However, this is challenging to do and even more difficult to do in a predictable way. But by using metamaterials, Crosby says that "we have overcome these challenges, and have not only made new materials, but also developed the design algorithms that allow these materials to be programmed with specific responses, making them predictable."
"Imagine a rubber band," says Alfred Crosby, professor of polymer science and engineering at UMass Amherst and the paper's senior author. "You pull it back, and when you let it go, it flies across the room. Now imagine a super rubber band. When you stretch it past a certain point, you activate extra energy stored in the material. When you let this rubber band go, it flies for a mile." This hypothetical rubber band is made out of a new metamaterial -- a substance engineered to have a property not found in naturally occurring materials -- that combines an elastic, rubber-like substance with tiny magnets embedded in it. This new "elasto-magnetic" material takes advantage of a physical property known as a phase shift to greatly amplify the amount of energy the material can release or absorb.
A phase shift occurs when a material moves from one state to another: think of water turning into steam or liquid concrete hardening into a sidewalk. Whenever a material shifts its phase, energy is either released or absorbed. And phase shifts aren't just limited to changes between liquid, solid and gaseous states -- a shift can occur from one solid phase to another. A phase shift that releases energy can be harnessed as a power source, but getting enough energy has always been the difficult part. "To amplify energy release or absorption, you have to engineer a new structure at the molecular or even atomic level," says Crosby. However, this is challenging to do and even more difficult to do in a predictable way. But by using metamaterials, Crosby says that "we have overcome these challenges, and have not only made new materials, but also developed the design algorithms that allow these materials to be programmed with specific responses, making them predictable."
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Re: Must be... (Score:5, Funny)
Flubber!
Re:Must be... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an article about a material with an ability to store large amounts of energy.
Guess what is never mentioned anywhere in the headline, summary, or article? Yup: The energy density.
The best indicator that a new invention is a load of bullcrap is that the very thing it is supposed to revolutionize is never quantified.
Re:Must be... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fine article. The free energy density is calculated for a wide range of the parameters' values, and a general expression (depending on the Landau phase) is given in Equation [4].
The headline and summary totally miss the point.
Re:Must be... (Score:4, Funny)
The headline and summary totally miss the point.
I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!
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And here i was hoping to have panties that store kinetic energy from scratching my b****s while slouching on the couch and then can be used to throw in the next looting rights party if i just yank the elastic and it all gets released in one flash
dammit!
Re:Must be... (Score:4, Informative)
No, the rubber band made of metamaterials was hypothetical, not the metamaterials.
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Re: Must be... (Score:1)
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You are worried about rogue rubber bands flying around?
Rubber-band airplanes! (Score:5, Funny)
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This energy density will allow rubber-band airplanes to be scaled up to passenger plane sizes!
Isn't Spirit already doing this?
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My wind up bicycle will go further than my e-bike now!
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Full size rubber band planes have been done. They're a gimmick, of course. It would be interesting if there actually was a mechanical energy storage method that was powerful enough and light enough to allow a normal plane flight. It sounds like the claims might be a bit exaggerated here.
Re: Condoms (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Condoms (Score:5, Funny)
"... that lengthens your shaft with each thrust."
Unless the effect is logarithmic, there's likely not sufficient time available to overcome my problem.
Scientists are calling the new material (Score:3, Funny)
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More like a macroscopic working model (Score:4, Informative)
Impact Dials (Score:2)
Helping lower your ordeal survival rate for years.
But how will it be useful for Battlebots? (Score:2)
I see articles like this, and the only thing I can think is, how can an engineer put this on a remote-control robot to help it obliterate another remote-control robot in gladiatorial arena-style combat?
Perhaps a hyper-powerful flipper device, or the equivalent of a super-powerful pinball bumper to send the bot flying across the room.
If they don't call it Flubber I'll be disappointed (Score:5, Funny)
Downside (Score:2)
Now imagine a super rubber band. When you stretch it past a certain point, you activate extra energy stored in the material. When you let this rubber band go, it flies for a mile."
Well just great, now rubber band guns will be controlled by the BATF and the rubber band airplanes will need FAA clearance and a registered flight plan to fly.
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I'm wondering how long before they redefine firearm to include pneumatics. There's some pretty impressive and affordable pneumatic rifles out there. And since it's not a firearm you can attach a not-a-suppressor and quietly remove pests.
Re: Downside (Score:1)
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Mousetraps are not likely to work very well against squirrels raiding the bird feeders.
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And since it's not a firearm you can attach a not-a-suppressor and quietly remove pests.
Careful there. BATF has ruled that paintball or air gun suppressors are a violation of the national firearms act [atf.gov].
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They're a bit touchy if it is detachable and could possibly be used on a firearm. A guy named mike crooker (after being imprisoned for several years) won his case against them and they were forced to return the airgun and suppressor. A bunch airguns now come with a suppressor permanently attached or with different threads or other means of preventing them from being used on a real firearm.
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That's good news overall, but I'm always reminded of something a wise lawyer said: "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." Your anecdote is a great example of that.
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Also, what happens when the band breaks and it smacks you in the face?
With great power... comes even greater risk!
Plastisteel? (Score:3)
So they invented Plastisteel?
https://starwars.fandom.com/wi... [fandom.com]
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No, they created https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Myomer/ [sarna.net]
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No, they created flubber [wikipedia.org].
Now, get off my lawn kids.
Combine with previous new material story (Score:2)
And you get an awesome rubber-band powered plane that the FAA will be outlawing soon.
Bungie jumps from hell anyone? (Score:2)
Or one hell of a neat way to finally get rid of naked bungie jumping for good without even creating a new law. Instead the laws of physics would see the end to the practice.
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They can make a bungie jumper propel all the way into the stratosphere. Cool. :)
Automotive-type power converter (Score:3)
Instead of hydraulic, programmatically engineered to phase change solid->solid. Interesting load distributions could be handled in cascades and waterfall assemblages.
Wonderful applications to overcome stall point of liquid viscous conerters.
"more power without using additional energy" (Score:3)
And they mention magnets! Oh boy!
My car tires are 'programmed' to be the shape of tires. Come on just use the term 'molded', it doesn't hurt to use proper terminology unless your entire thing is trying to win buzzword bingo.
So then we'll have to wait for (Score:2)
...a white knight in rubbery armor?
Similar Technology (Score:2)
Different solid phases? (Score:1)
Can anyone explain what these different solid phases are?
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in shape memory alloys, phase transitions from martensite to austenite lead to changes in the lattice displacement, which have been harnessed to cause movement
...unfortunately I have no clue what those words mean.
Scientists engineered... (Score:2)
Why are scientists engineering anything? Shouldn't that be engineers engineering things? Shouldn't the scientists be, I don't know, sciencing something?! :-)
Silly English.