Also, I understand why they just talk about “strength”, but it would be nice to have some real idea of which properties they really mean. Is it harder? Does it resist impact better? Does it resist lateral torsion better? Steels cover a wide range and almost always involve tradeoffs.
Yeah it’s kind of insane what a miracle material steel is. Especially for how long ago it has been discovered and we still haven’t found another material that is better in every way, like how steel replaced iron or brass or copper.
The balance of all the material properties for its weight/volume and its manufacturability and price is just unbeatable.
For scifi purposes,I tried to find another material that could beat it if cost wasn’t an issue and I couldn’t. Closest ones I could find that aren’t already obiquitous in popular consciouness like titanium, aluminium, tungsten carbide etc. are Molybdenum and Beryllium. But yeah, they don’t exactly beat steel either.
yeah meanwhile iron is literally nescessary to make your blood transport oxygen.
Mo and Be (and their alloys) just have similar strength to weight ratios, but they aren’t exactly practical drop in replacements.
So yeah, I haven’t found anything better than steel, there’s just materials that are better in one or two aspects, but nothing with the versatility of steel. To be fair, we have thousands of years of research into steel, perhaps we can still find something better. Idk, maybe some high entropy alloy.
That was my first though too.
Also, I understand why they just talk about “strength”, but it would be nice to have some real idea of which properties they really mean. Is it harder? Does it resist impact better? Does it resist lateral torsion better? Steels cover a wide range and almost always involve tradeoffs.
Yeah it’s kind of insane what a miracle material steel is. Especially for how long ago it has been discovered and we still haven’t found another material that is better in every way, like how steel replaced iron or brass or copper. The balance of all the material properties for its weight/volume and its manufacturability and price is just unbeatable.
For scifi purposes,I tried to find another material that could beat it if cost wasn’t an issue and I couldn’t. Closest ones I could find that aren’t already obiquitous in popular consciouness like titanium, aluminium, tungsten carbide etc. are Molybdenum and Beryllium. But yeah, they don’t exactly beat steel either.
Isn’t beryllium pretty brittle, though? Beryllium poisoning happens due to airborne particles, I thought it almost… crumbled? I guess?
yeah meanwhile iron is literally nescessary to make your blood transport oxygen. Mo and Be (and their alloys) just have similar strength to weight ratios, but they aren’t exactly practical drop in replacements. So yeah, I haven’t found anything better than steel, there’s just materials that are better in one or two aspects, but nothing with the versatility of steel. To be fair, we have thousands of years of research into steel, perhaps we can still find something better. Idk, maybe some high entropy alloy.
Materials science is still chugging along, I think there are more metals to discover.
And how renewable is this new glass-coated DNA material? Iron scores pretty high on that one too.