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by s0rce 27 days ago
Are you sure? Liquid metal was the name of a bulk metallic glass. There were usb flash drives using it as a case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidmetal. Wikipedia lists apple licensing this technology.

Metal injection molding is also a thing but I haven't heard it called liquid metal. Usually its MIM.
2 comments
shawn_w 27 days ago
Shoot, the article even outright says

>Liquidmetal has also notably been used for making the SIM ejector tool of some iPhone 3Gs made by Apple Inc., shipped in the US.

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bayindirh 27 days ago
Honestly, I didn't know that "amorphous metal alloy" is also called metallic glass. I computed it to something else entirely. So you're right on that front.

MIM is something else, that's right, but properties of Liquid Glass allows it to be injection molded AFAIK.

MIM process is completely different from casting Liquid Metal. MIM generally starts as a powder and heated and molded, Liquid Metal can be just "melted and molded".

I have a stainless steel razor built with MIM. Has no resemblence to SanDisk Titanium's feel (which I also have).

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s0rce 27 days ago
glass is the general materials science term for an amorphous non-crystalline solid
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bayindirh 27 days ago
TIL.

I did my Ph.D. by developing BEM evaluators for working on metals, but glasses (as in class of materials) were not in my domain, so I'm thick as a brick on that part of the materials science.

Edit: BEM methods is as fun as USB buses and PSU units.

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