2 ms·

The amorphous material’s atoms are arranged every which way, much like the atoms of the glass in a window. Its glassy nature makes it stronger and lighter than

• woah 9y ago
  My only credentials are a lifetime of wikipedia, but I think it's because breaks in metals propagate along crystal boundaries. You can harden metal by cooling it quickly which results in small crystals, or compressing or stretching it (i.e. with a hammer), which breaks larger crystals into smaller crystals. Maybe with a completely amorphous structure it's like the smallest crystals ever.
• plaidfuji 9y ago
  From the actual paper: """ For example, the absence of deformation pathways based on gliding dislocations leads to exceptional yield strength and wear resistance """ Yield strength means "how much strain a material can handle before it fractures or otherwise breaks" In crystalline metals, a crack that forms anywhere can propagate through the lattice quickly and lead to bulk fracture (see the southwest engine failure recently). In an amorphous material, the deformation caused by a local crack can be "absorbed" by the surrounding atoms because they're able to reposition more easily.
  • p1esk 9y ago
    How come this does not make regular glass strong?
    • pharke 9y ago
      It does, check out its properties compared to other materials. The process of turning silica into glass makes it much stronger than other materials made of silica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_of_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_of_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength
    • bigger_cheese 9y ago
      Material properties can be confusing. Strength, hardness, Flexibility all mean different things when engineers talk about them. Glass is a brittle material which means it will not deform (change dimensions i.e. stretch) when you apply an external force. The opposite of brittle is a ductile material, like steel, which yields and begins to deform once you apply a load above the material's yield threshold. Depending on the material's application ductility/brittleness can be a desired property.