[SV_BubbleTime]

>It's two times stronger than steel, three times stronger than aluminum, and twice as strong as the same alloy made in a conventional way.

Ugh. The most basic bitch metallurgy discussion possible.

Oh! It’s stronger than aluminum?! So is bronze, we’ve hard that for awhile! Is the new material lighter than aluminum while being stronger? Is it corrosion resistant? Is it machinable? Can you weld it? Does it oxidize? Does it lose all its strength under moderate heat? Does it temper, do you have to temper it? Is it inert? Can it extrude? Can it be formed into billet or just plate/bar? Does it shatter?

Oh but 2x stronger than <some steel> and 3x stronger than <some aluminum>… is that 2024 aluminum? 6061 common, 7075 aero? Is the steel cold roll or 600-series inconel?

This is an area where if you don’t know what you are talking about, STFU, because anything you say is just going to be embarrassing. This is a you don’t know what you don’t know topic.

As to “high entropy metals”, I’ve heard about this for awhile, I would expect it to be stupid low yield, stupid expensive, and hard to use. There is probably some grade-40 titanium ultra alloy that could make the same “strength” claims but no articles about it because it’s “cost prohibitive”.

… I count this as clickbait metallurgy. No thanks.

[perching_aix]

I want to live in a world where these (important!) points are surfaced without their presenter sounding like they were personally insulted, and are frustrated to have to bring them up.

[xxs]

alternatively, you ignore the feelings of all (hurt) parties and carry on. The original article is exceptionally poor when it comes to any detail.

I am no metallurgist, or machinist, or work in fabrication, at best I can qualify as a welder made by grinder and paint. Yet, reading that feels more like a sci-fi story (and even technologies that haven't been imagined yet) than just sci.

[perching_aix]

> alternatively, you ignore the feelings of all (hurt) parties and carry on

Yes, I can force myself to act unnaturally to an extent. I even did. What I'm saying is that I wish I didn't need to, because it sucks.

[adrian_b]

Indeed, such "high-entropy" alloys have been known for decades, but they are rarely used because of high cost.

There is only one new fact in this research, which is however very interesting.

By mechanical working of the alloy, its crystal structure has changed to a mixture of grains with 3 different crystal structures, instead of being composed of homogeneous grains, like most solid-solution metallic alloys.

This change of crystal structure induced by mechanical working has doubled the strength of an already strong alloy, which is the novel and interesting result of this research.

The reason why this could happen is that the alloy contains similar amounts of metals that normally have distinct crystal structures. In alloys with a dominant metal, the alloy tends to have the same crystal structure as that metal, but in this alloy none of the crystal structures is preferred, so the grains take one of them randomly, during deep mechanical deformation.

[KingMob]

"How dare this Science paper summary designed for mass consumption, not meet my personal standards of metallurgical detail! Don't they know I read them?!"