Metal Made Like Plastic May Have Big Impact Open a door and watch what happens – the hing
Metal Made Like Plastic May Have Big Impact
Open a door and watch what happens – the hinge allows it to open and close, but doesn’t permanently bend. This simple concept of mechanical motion is vital for making all kinds of movable structures, including mirrors and antennas on spacecraft. Material scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are working on new, innovative methods of creating materials that can be used for motion-based mechanisms.When a device moves because metal is flexing but isn’t permanently deformed, that’s called a compliant mechanism. Compliant mechanisms are all around us – in springs, surgical instruments, paperclips, clothespins and even micro-devices.
Researchers at JPL, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, describe a new methodology for creating complex, low-cost compliant mechanisms using a combination of novel materials and manufacturing techniques in a recent paper featured on the cover of the journal Advanced Engineering Materials. They demonstrate that materials called “bulk metallic glasses” have highly desirable properties for these mechanisms. These “glasses,” as the scientists call them, are metal alloys designed to have a random arrangement of atoms.
