NASA Demonstrates a Breakthrough In 3D Printable High-Temperature Materials (scitechdaily.com) 51
NASA has developed a new superalloy called GRX-810 that could lead to stronger, more durable parts for airplanes and spacecraft. SciTechDaily reports: GRX-810 is an oxide dispersion strengthened alloy. In other words, tiny particles containing oxygen atoms spread throughout the alloy enhance its strength. Such alloys are excellent candidates to build aerospace parts for high-temperature applications, like those inside aircraft and rocket engines, because they can withstand harsher conditions before reaching their breaking points. Current state-of-the-art 3D printed superalloys can withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to those, GRX-810 is twice as strong, over 1,000 times more durable, and twice as resistant to oxidation.
"This new alloy is a major achievement," said Dale Hopkins, deputy project manager of NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project. "In the very near future, it may well be one of the most successful technology patents NASA Glenn has ever produced." GRX-810 was developed under NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project, with support from the agency's Game Changing Development Program. The peer-reviewed paper has been published in the journal Nature.
"This new alloy is a major achievement," said Dale Hopkins, deputy project manager of NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project. "In the very near future, it may well be one of the most successful technology patents NASA Glenn has ever produced." GRX-810 was developed under NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project, with support from the agency's Game Changing Development Program. The peer-reviewed paper has been published in the journal Nature.
American here (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond 500F, just give me temperatures in Celsius. If I can't relate to it as an outdoor temperature or oven temperature then it is easier just to get scientific.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from "everybody's doing it", how is Celsius any more "scientific" than Farenheit? If you want to be more "scientific", at least use a scale anchored at absolute zero, but even then, choosing the scale is pretty arbitrary.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
How is that more scientific? What relevance does the melting and boiling points of pure H20 at a particular pressure have to metal alloys?
All the measurement scales are arbitrary, so preferring one's arbitrariness over another's is pretty silly. The temperature scales that aren't anchored to absolute zero are extra arbitrary, so declaring any one more "scientific" than another is silly.
The primary advantage of the metric system is that powers of ten are easier for humans to remember (although the magnitudes
Re: (Score:3)
Then use Kelvin. Absolute zero is not arbitrary. The gradients are based on metric celsius for easy conversion there, but it is by no means arbitrary.B
Re: American here (Score:3)
I hate to tell you this, but the US is a metric country, and has been since the Metric Conversion act of 1975 passed.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Fahrenheit is still based on freezing and boiling points of water but with 180 degrees of separation instead of 100 and with 0 defined by the freezing point of an ammonium chloride solution for whatever dang reason.
As a Canadian who lived a bit in the states I'm all kinds of messed up where I think of cold temperatures in C, higher weather temperatures in F, and cooking temperatures or higher in C. For some reason the upper range of weather temperatures just make more sense to me in F now heh.
Re: (Score:2)
Farenheit for weather temperatures makes more sense for me, in part because it's a finer scale. That means it doesn't require decimals in the commonly-referenced ranges to be more accurate (and so is easier/quicker to say). Also, 0-99 covers a much more common set of temperatures experienced, so negative and triple digits are much more indicative at a glance of extremes.
But for scientific applications, stick to Kelvin. Aside from being properly anchored at absolute zero, it's also shorter to say/write (sinc
Re: (Score:2)
I'm still fine with either C or K for scientific applications, they're the same scale just the line is translated by a constant for absolute 0 vs freezing point of water.
Re: American here (Score:2)
I donâ(TM)t give a shit if itâ(TM)s 24ÂC or 25ÂC, so Celsius doesnâ(TM)t require decimals for weather either.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I set my thermostat to 68F or 70F, and never to 69F (heh). I tend to either use even numbers or multiples of 5. For example, I might tell my wife that it will be 80F-85F this weekend. Maybe F is a little finer resolution when expressing it as an integer, and you also partially avoid awkward negative numbers in natural speech. But I feel like I don't take advantage of these features, so they are kind of worthless to me. (PS - doesn't get below 0C very often where I live either)
I don't even like Celsius or Fa
Re:American here (Score:5, Informative)
That means it doesn't require decimals in the commonly-referenced ranges to be more accurate (and so is easier/quicker to say).
To be more precise you mean. Important to understand the difference between precision and accuracy. For example, saying that you're exactly six feet, eight inches and 328 mils (an abomination of a unit of measurement) tall is highly precise but - if you're actually five feet, eight inches tall - is not very accurate. Whereas saying you're around 6 feet might be accurate, but not very precise. I'm not just saying this to nitpick on terminology btw. I think it speaks to your argument. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of thermometers are not that accurate. The precision of the thermometer being 79 degrees or 80 degrees F does not help very much if it's actually 78 or 81 and very likely it is different from what you get on the thermometer. Integer Celsius values will provide just as much actual accuracy, even if they don't provide the same meaningless precision without using decimals. In cases where you are actually using very accurate, very precise scientific measurements with properly calibrated instruments and accounting for all environmental conditions, then you can just use decimals. For day to day temperatures, 28 degrees C realistically gives you just as much information as either 82 or 83 degrees F would when it comes to the temperature outside.
Basically, you think that that the Fahrenheit degrees are more natural measurements for that sort of thing because that's what you are used to. I've heard the same argument over and over about all kinds of imperial measurements and it always seems to be this same claim that they're more natural and the metric units are either too big or too small and, somehow, the imperial measurements just happen to fit this perfect size for real world measurements. It's just a rationalization though. Because you're so familiar with those measurements, they just _seem_ natural.
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard the same argument over and over about all kinds of imperial measurements and it always seems to be this same claim that they're more natural
Then they should love the most natural units of all [wikipedia.org]. 6 feet is kinda stupid and clunky compared to 1.1E35 plank lengths which is something everyone, no matter which galaxy you come from, can agree on.
Re: American here (Score:2)
I use Rankine, thankyouverymuch.
Re:American here (Score:4, Informative)
Fahrenheit is still based on freezing and boiling points of water but with 180 degrees of separation instead of 100 and with 0 defined by the freezing point of an ammonium chloride solution for whatever dang reason.
My understanding of the ammonium chloride solution in question is that it is self-regulating. Basically, ammonium chloride dissolving in water is endothermic and chills the water but, below a certain point, the water can't hold any more ammonium chloride and it will fall out of solution. So you start with an icy slush and the ammonium chloride keeps it that way for a long period, keeping it at a specific temperature depending on the proportions. Basically it's a guaranteed way to use chemistry to get a stable temperature to regulate against. At the other end, Fahrenheit set 90 to be his approximation of human body temperature (later adjusted). Of course, even with those as calibration points, 0 and 100 could have been used for different points. That's just not the way it worked out.
Australian here (Score:2)
Speaking from a country that decades ago went almost totally metric, I'll just add my $0.02.
My heating system's thermostat reports the temperature to a precision of half a Centigrade degree.
This means it is more precise than your single-Fahrenheit-degree devices. So there.:^)
Re:American here (Score:5, Informative)
The reason is 0F is defined as the coldest temperature Fahrenheit could've gotten with the materials at the time. It was basically "absolute zero" in his day. He then defined body temperature as 96F because it was a number with a lot of convenient divisors. He never defined the temperature of boiling water - it just landed wherever it landed.
Of course, that went out the window, since average body temperature is defined as 98.1F.
Metric was based on water, with 0C being the freezing point of water at 1 ATM, and 100C being the boiling point. Water had been used because it's a convenient unit to base things on, which is why 1L of water initially defined the kilogram (a 1cm x 1cm x 1cm cube defined the gram). Thus with water, you get temperature, mass, and length scales. Of course, these days we don't use water, but that was one of the original derivations for various units.
Of course, we note the true history of the units, meter was defined as the length of the meridian running through Paris from the geographic North Pole to the equator which means gram was derived that way, while temperature was arrived at independently.
Anyhow, the US is a metric country. All units are defined in terms of metric - the inch is 25.4mm by definition, for example. Everything else has exact conversions. So while you still use miles and Fahrenheit and ounces, all of those units are defined in terms of their metric counterparts and have been for decades now. The only thing is the "customary" units which is what units people use in day to day life.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, you slipped a few zeroes there with the definition of a meter.
You're out by a factor of 10,000,000.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, freezing and boiling depend on pressure as well as temperature. So, to be slightly pedantic, it's tied to the triple point of water being 0.01 degrees and absolute zero to be -273.15 degrees. Though Wikipedia tells me the Kelvin was redefined in 2019 to be in terms of the Boltzmann constant and Celsius then defined to be equal to Kelvin + 273.15.
Re: (Score:3)
absolute zero scales are nice too. But I wouldn't necessarily want my numbers in Rankine either. Really this boils down to common convention. Celsius and Kelvin are what we're used to in science and engineering, even if we're just amateur scientists or enthusiast. If I read 10 articles on science topics and 3 of them use different measurement systems, that's pretty damn inconvenient to me.
Convention is also why I don't use hexadecimal when I discuss economics and finance.
Re: (Score:1)
I think it wouldn't be freezing temperature, or boiling temperature, more a searing temperate.
Re: And what about non-3D printed alloys? (Score:4, Informative)
They are, but 3D printed alloys can be economically made into shapes that non 3D printed ones canâ(TM)t. Take for example rocket engine combustion chambers. You generally want to have channels in the side of them that the cryogenic propellants are flowed through to cool everything down. To do that on the F1 engine used on the Saturn V, hundreds of pipes were braised together to form the shape, requiring days of precision work and checks. To make fancier shapes for the RS-25 on the space shuttle, a copper inner sleeve was made, then channels were machined into it. Those channels were then filled with metal impregnated wax, and carefully scraped back to fill them as precisely as possible. The entire combustion chamber was then electroplated with a thin layer of Nicole, and then a very thick layer of copper. The copper layer, because it was so thick took days to plate on. With 3D printing, those combustion chambers can be pumped out in relatively little time, with extremely complex fluid flows built in.
Re: (Score:2)
electroplated with a thin layer of Nicole, and then a very thick layer of copper.
What did Nicole have to say about this?
Nowadays, she would go straight to HR and make a complaint!
Re: (Score:2)
electroplated with a thin layer of Nicole, and then a very thick layer of copper.
What did Nicole have to say about this?
Nowadays, she would go straight to HR and make a complaint!
Nicole, she thicc thicc, she won't even notice a missing layer.
Re: And what about non-3D printed alloys? (Score:5, Interesting)
The best use case for rocket engine design is not the combustion chamber, but the injector. Injectors are currently/have traditionally been limited by the ability to manufacture them using existing methods. As typical injector was made of dozens of thin metal plates, each machined with holes, and then stacked to get the desired propellant path through it. It was like sections of a CAT scan, make them thin enough and numerous enough and you could make complex paths for the propellant to go through and get expelled into the engine and properly intersect with the the other propellants (fuel and oxidizer). These plates had to be brazed in place to prevent leaks between the plates. This operation was notoriously tricky, took forever, and took extreme screening to assure that they were all sealed up properly.
With a 3d printer, you can just print them in any shape you can draw, and given proper attention to the size of the deposited drops/porosity, have near certainty that they will be the shape you intended and also not leak.
Re: (Score:1)
Problematical patents made with our tax dollars (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the odds some company gets an exclusive sweatheart deal and this technology is essentially locked up for 20 years?
Related by me from twenty years ago: ..."
https://pdfernhout.net/on-fund... [pdfernhout.net]
"As a software developer and content creator, I find it continually frustrating to visit web sites of projects funded directly or indirectly by government agencies or foundations, only to discover I can't easily improve on those projects because of licensing restrictions both on redistribution and on making derived works of their content and software.
A shorter version of that:
https://pdfernhout.net/open-le... [pdfernhout.net]
"Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations."
nasa 3d prints (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Important properties other than temperature (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, these will get more use for engine and washing machine parts than rockets.
Re: Important properties other than temperature (Score:2)
There are companies 3D printing rocket engines, and actively working on improving the metallurgy. Itâ(TM)s not coincidence that NASA is working on this problem too - theyâ(TM)re working directly with those companies to produce better engines. This, or some derivative, is almost certainly going to be used in rockets.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Important properties other than temperature (Score:4, Funny)
washing machine parts
i think you may want to turn your hot water heater down a bit
Re: (Score:2)
A major part of this is not just the temperature but the other properties.
For example low creep under high temperature loading. Heat most metals and they soften far below the melting point.
Apollo 13 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Because instead of 100x that in spares, you have the printer and one lump of raw material that can become any spare you require.
Because you don't need all 100 spares, you need the spare for the one thing that just broke.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Apollo 13 (Score:3)
Once Starship is working, taking a kg to orbit will cost about $20-50, compared to today, it costs about $1500. That means the delivery cost for a spool of filament will be about equal to the cost of a big standard roll of PLA. Starship will be putting as much in orbit per launch as currently put into orbit in an entire quarter.
OK what's in it besides oxygen? (Score:2)