New steel is 62 times more rigid

US researchers have developed a super-hard steel that shields meteorite satellites or drills through the strongest layers of rock.

According to Discovery News, the new type of steel called SAM2X5-630 can withstand pressure and stress up to 12.5 giga-Pascal (equivalent to about 125,000 atmospheres) without compromising. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and the University of Southern California published their findings in the April issue of Nature Scientific Reports.

Compared with the new steel material, the maximum pressure that stainless steel withstands is 0.2 giga-Pascal, and tungsten carbide (a toughened ceramic used for armored vehicles in the military) is 4.5 gigahertz -Calcul. Thus SAM2X5-630 steel is 62.5 times harder than stainless steel, and its hardness is less than diamond.

The hardness of the new steel is less than diamonds. (Image: Reddit).

"Our materials are complemented by elements not found in conventional steel , " said Olivia Graeve, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Jacobs School of Engineering. "It contains boron, tungsten, silicon, which allows the material to loosen its crystal structure and become an amorphous metal."

In this new steel, the iron and carbon atoms (components of steel) are amorphous while other parts are arranged in the same crystal structure as metallic glass.

The SAM2X5-630 is produced by converting the iron mixture into a powder, into graphite molds, compressed at 100 mega-Pascal pressure and then passing the 10,000 Amper current through which the atoms are heated to the level of compacting. together without liquefying.

The US Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency funded the study for the purpose of using this material as a cover for drums containing nuclear waste stored at the Yucca Mountain nuclear facility.

According to John Poon, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia in the US, another idea is to use a new type of steel for a warhead. "A number of warheads made of superhard materials can penetrate caves or walls in Afghanistan or elsewhere," Poon said.

Graeve says the new material has an unexpected benefit that is not rusty, which can be used on ships and submarines. "This type of steel is not oxidized, you can use it to cover anything that comes in contact with seawater, it's a million times more corrosion-resistant than stainless steel, " Graeve said.