[abiogenesis]

> The blade is gradually eroded, and eventually rendered ineffective as the force and energy of the disc or the drill is turned back on itself, and it is weakened and destroyed by its own attack.

What about an angle grinder disc made of this new material?

[hwillis]

It would probably not be very good at cutting, and would just get very hot. Just because the blade doesn't wear away doesn't make it good at cutting.

One way to make something resist abrasives is for it to be/sustain very high temperatures. If you can survive a hotter temperature than the abrasive (quite low for diamond, higher for sapphire) then it will be much less effective.

[taneq]

Pretty sure once this new material gets hot enough the aluminium substrate will melt and it'll cut just as well as anything else.

[hwillis]

You'd need direct heating, a conventional blade still would not work. The alumina spheres hold off the cutting edges and block heat flow from hotspots. A small amount of aluminum foam will melt, but once it's far enough away from the hot zone it'll just serve to conduct heat away from the ceramic much more rapidly than it otherwise would.

[kbenson]

There seems to by multiple different types of material incorporated, and I'm not sure that would work in a blade, where it's really the tip/edge that comes into contact.

[almost_usual]

They don’t mention what kind of blade was used in the experiment? Interested if it was a diamond blade or a conventional blade.

When pausing the video it looks like a conventional cut off wheel.

[hwillis]

It's an alumina fiber reinforced blade, same ceramic as in the material. It's the most common grinding wheel material.

Diamond blades are not especially good at cutting. They only used when absolutely necessary, ie when your material is extremely hard. Diamond sublimates at low temperatures, it dulls quickly because of the fracture planes, and it's so weak and brittle that only tiny grains can survive being used to cut.

The alumina spheres they use are softer than diamond, but handle the cutting environment much better. Zirconia wheels handle cutting even better (up to 10x better) than alumina, but its softer. No idea what would be ideal.

Loading a power washer with some expensive abrasives would still cut this fairly quickly, and a thermic torch would cut it very quickly. Kind of requires you to not care about what's actually on the inside, though.

[senderista]

I use diamond metal blades because I don’t want my blade turning into shrapnel.

[Cthulhu_]

It's aluminium foam, meaning it wouldn't do very well with heat or tension.