3 ms·
> You've got to wonder why it never went anywhere material fatigue. basically the nitinol springs/belts/strips eventually breaks. so it's a high maintenance l
by pas 4y ago
> You've got to wonder why it never went anywhere
material fatigue. basically the nitinol springs/belts/strips eventually breaks.
so it's a high maintenance low-efficiency (hard to scale) system compared to regular steam turbines.
... though of course the latter is in development for ~250 years, so it has a bit of a head start.
- api 4y agoWonder if you could get anywhere revisiting this with modern materials science? Materials have come a really long way in the past 60+ years.
- pas 4y agothe wikipedia page for nitinol is fascinating! so it seems like very much part of modern materials science. (and I'd guess bimetals are standard in many heat-related engineering applications, nitinol is just special because of how fast it changes shape, and because it's an alloy not 2 pieces of metal stuck together.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_titanium#Biocompatible_and_biomedical_applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_titanium#Biocompatible_...
- fennecfoxen 4y agoIt’s not the 250 year head start that gets you. It’s the temperature differential.