[TheForge] amorphous steel

[Clyde Wynia]

Two quotes from the article on the price and work ability from the article:

the team believes it has found a way to make amorphous steel in bulk
economically with traditional, drop-casting methods. Its cost should be
comparable to that of conventional steels


The rare-earth metal helps frustrate the onset of crystallization even as
the liquid steel approaches its solidification temperature -- about 2,500
degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius). The steel then can be shaped
with conventional melting and casting techniques. Poon noted the steels
could even be processed like plastic
GHS wrote:
>
> Andy, who you kidding?
> Didn't they say $100 lb.?

       Andy wrote
>They said such materials can be as much as that, as I
       > recall. The article also said that the discoverers
        >anticipate devising processes where amprphous steels
       > would become cheap and plentiful.  This is the cue I
        >took to mean that the material's properties are gained
        by its physical chemistry and not through elaborate
        processing.  If in fact this sort of steel were to become
        commonly available for, say, structural applications,
        there is no way that it would be able to be so in the
        hands of some "who gives a crap, my brain stays in the
        off position" worker if the material's handling requirements
        were so stringent.  How would a steel frame building be
        welded if the heat destroyed its properties?  Riveting?
        Bolting?  Perhaps, but that limits applications severely;
        far more so than I would have gathered from the article.
        I would also imagine that were the requirements that
        tight, it would have been mentioned by the author.  OTOH,
        reason doesn't always win out in such things. :)
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