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'liquid metal' sounds cool. It's probably a metallic glass. I super dislike that it seemingly will be synonymous with the brand name by Apple even though that s
by gnatolf 5mo ago
'liquid metal' sounds cool. It's probably a metallic glass. I super dislike that it seemingly will be synonymous with the brand name by Apple even though that stuff has been around for decades.
Not that there are particularly many places where this is used - mostly because it really is just very expensive. In the awesome position that Apple is in, economic feasibility is so much easier to achieve, with like tens of millions of guaranteed parts to be preduced.
- bayindirh 5mo agoIt's not metallic glass. It's an injectable, super strong alloy. You can manufacture things like you're using injection molded plastic. To be honest, British also has an injectable stainless steel, but its application domain is much more different.
- s0rce 5mo agoAre 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 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.
- bayindirh 5mo agoHonestly, 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).
- s0rce 5mo agoglass is the general materials science term for an amorphous non-crystalline solid
- bayindirh 5mo agoTIL. 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.
- shawn_w 5mo agoShoot, 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.
- wuschel 5mo agoYes, it is injectable, which is a unique property a material that exhibits some properties of steel. The downside is that it is brittle.
- Danox 5mo agoYou can buy shares in the company that makes and holds the patents on liquid metal they are currently a penny stock and have been for several years and at one time the shares sold for $23 a share at its highest point many years ago.. I don’t expect anything out of it, but I own 12,000 shares just for fun.