Alloy that is composed of nickel, cobalt, and chromium has been seen to have the highest level of fracture toughness that has ever been observed among Earth materials. According to Science Alert, its remarkable ductility and strength has pushed what scientists have dubbed as an outstanding tolerance to damage.
Though it may appear counterintuitive, such strong properties tend to get enhanced when the material has a lower temperature. Such observations suggest how the material has intriguing potential to be used in highly cryogenic environmental applications.
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Strength, Ductility, and Toughness
When it comes to assessing a material's level of durability, toughness, ductility, and strength are the three core properties to take into consideration. Strength refers to the extent that a material can resist deformation. Ductility refers to the malleability of the material. Such properties are what factor the material's general toughness, which refers to how resistant the material is to fracture. In particular, fracture roughness refers to being resistant to even more fracture in a material that has already been fractured.
A team of researchers have studied materials that are called HEAs or high-entropy alloys. In most cases, alloys have one dominant element while other elements get included in lesser proportions. While this is usually the case, HEAs comprise elements that have the same proportions.
CrMnFeCoNi Alloy
One specific alloy called CrMnFeCoNi, which is composed of the chromium, manganese element, iron element, cobalt element, and nickel element), has become a central focus. Great attention was granted to it after scientists observed how its level of ductility and strength got higher at the temperature of liquid nitrogen. In such conditions, the toughness of the material did not get compromised. These findings were previously published in the Science publication.
Derivative Alloy CrCoNi Has Remarkable Toughness
A specific derivative of this alloy is CrCoNi, which comprises the chromium element, cobalt element, and nickel element) showed even better properties. Hence, the researchers of the recent study decided to test the limits of this alloy. They published their findings in another Science journal.
Previous studies that focused on CrCoNi and CrMnFeCoNi were performed in temperatures of liquid nitrogen, which reached up to 77 degrees Kelvin. The researchers decided to push the temperatures even more, reaching that of helium.
Upon doing so, the team had interesting findings. The Berkeley Lab notes how Robert Richie, one of the authors, expressed how the material's toughness at helium temperatures (around 20 degrees Kelvin) went as high as "500 megapascals square root meters."
The team dug deeper into how this works and also examined the CrMnFeCoNi alloy within fluid helium temperatures. However, the said alloy underperformed its less complicated derivative.
Moving forward, the next steps that the scientists will take would be to look into the probable applications of this material. They may also explore other HEAs and see if there are other alloys that share similar characteristics.
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