Monday, April 11, 2011

Play-Doh that can hold up a Bridge ?

Plastic like Steel
       As a kid, I loved playing with Play-Doh.  My imagination would run wild and I would create amazing looking helicopters or airplanes, sometimes creatures.  At Yale, they were able to develop a metal alloy that molds as efficiently and quickly like plastic.  The material is known as BMGs, bulk metallic glasses.  Besides material, the method of molding is what makes it so flexible.  They method is called Blow-Mold, which is then subgroup into extrusion blow molding, injection blow molding, and stretch blow molding.  In extrusion blow molding, the material is melted and poured into a parison, a hollow tube, and air is forced into the parison making it into the shape of the tube.  For the injection blow mold method, where material is melted onto a rod, called a preform, then placed inside another machine which blows the cooling material into the desired shape.  In the stretch blow molding, it uses a preform(obtained from injection mold), places it inside the desired shape and high pressured air is pushed in, making the complete form. *Source*

*Source*
      With this new discovery, created by scientists in Yale University, production of strong metals will become more cost efficient and shapes would be easier to make.  This is the ideal invention that our future looks to, being able to produce great durability, while paying only a faction of the cost.  All appliances, parts, structures, and toys would become much more affordable.  This type of material would be best used for restructuring buildings or mending buildings, since it can be easily molded, while producing a reliable sturdiness.  However, I don't think it can be used for building skyscrapers or buildings, because it doesn't sound sturdy knowing that it can be easily manipulated.  It can also become easy targets for terrorists and easily be put as a hostage.

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