

Scientists at MIT create mathematical model to predict alloy characteristics - arjn
http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/1546-mathematical-shortcut-create-new-metals.html

======
blix
At the risk of being a downer, this isn't that interesting from a computer
science perspective. What happened here is that standard computational methods
were applied to test a novel theory of stability for nanocrystalline
metals[1]. While this is cool and all for metallurgists[2], even by materials
science standards the computation is old (we're pretty slow to pick up on this
whole computer thing).

There's some (in my opinion) more interesting work going on at MIT[3] in
ceramics, where machine learning is being used to predict new material
properties. Unfortunately, the group hasn't gotten published in Science or
Nature yet, so I don't have much to link to. However, ceramics both are more
variable than metals and less well known (one of my professors liked to call
it the 'Wild West' of materials), so the big results are likely to be more
exciting when they do arrive.

\--

[1] All common metals are formed of arrays of tiny crystals, however the
metals described here have much smaller crystals than usual (nanometers
instead of microns). This strengthens the metals as the movement of crystal
defects is the main source of weakness in metals. Defects can easily move
within a single crystal, but not so much between them, so reducing the size of
crystals significantly hampers defect movement and thus strengthens the metal.
Unfortunately, crystals don't like being this small and so preventing them
from growing is a serious concern and the focus of this research.

[2] The new theory is actually pretty exciting, and seem to expose significant
flaws in the old theory. I don't understand it well enough to say much more
though.

[3] <http://ceder.mit.edu/>

------
FrojoS
That sounds big. I still remember the horrors from my two mandatory terms of
material science.

"The school of 'ALCHMI' argues this is what gives the alloy property X, while
the school 'HOCUS'says, its the sudden drop off at xx deg in the Iron-carbon
phase diagram ...."

Maybe it wasn't that bad, but it never felt like a precise science to me, at
least compared to the other subjects you take as Mechi, like Math, Dynamics or
Controls.

The abstract (Thank you montecarl) only talks about "nanostructured metals"
though. I wonder if this scales.

~~~
blix
In defense of MatSE, you only took the course for non-majors (I assume). I
assure you that it gets a lot more legit after that, much in the same way
MechE gets more interesting once you move past statics.

To answer your question though, the model doesn't scale, but that's because
the problem doesn't scale. We're talking about a bulk sample of metal made up
of crystals that are, according to the old theory, too small to be stable.
Once the crystals become larger, the old theory adequately describes their
stability.

------
montecarl
Link to abstract: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6097/951.abstract>

