30/08/2016
Construction giant Arup is claiming that 3D printing is to make its construction debut, following the announcement it has produced a series of metallic brackets that are re-engineered structural steel elements. The part is designed to fit firmly into real-world, ‘hard hat’ construction projects, and could signal a new direction for the company, as it begins to experiment with additive manufacturing technology in the field of construction and engineering.
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25/08/2016
US researchers have discovered a way of smelting metal using electricity, potentially revolutionising the way the metallic materials are produced. The team’s breakthrough came while doing unrelated electrochemistry work with batteries.
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21/07/2016
Titanium is the leading material for artificial knee and hip joints because it's strong, wear-resistant and nontoxic, but an unexpected discovery by Rice University physicists shows that artificial joints can be improved with the addition of gold at a ratio of three to one and with a specific atomic structure.
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19/07/2016
Researchers from Virginia Tech have found a way to create lightweight, strong, super elastic 3D printed metallic nanostructured materials with unprecedented scalability, a full seven orders of magnitude control of arbitrary 3D architectures.
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29/06/2016
A team of European researchers has harnessed new photonics technology to develop the first fluid-repellent, antibacterial, metal surface. Taking inspiration from the defence mechanisms of plants such as the Lotus leaf, the ‘High Throughput Laser Texturing of Self-Cleaning and Antibacterial Surfaces’, or ‘TresClean’, project’s breakthrough could enable the production of self-cleaning sheet metal on an industrial scale for the first time.
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13/04/2016
There is only one week to go until the FAST Exhibition opens its doors at The Concorde Conference Centre in Manchester. Taking place on 21 April, the FAST exhibition has been created to provide you with a single location to meet fastening experts and discover the answers to your design problems.
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08/04/2016
A team of engineers from the University of California, San Diego, the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology claims to have developed and tested a type of steel with a record-breaking ability to withstand an impact without deforming permanently. The new steel alloy could be used in applications from drill bits, to body armour for soldiers, to meteor-resistant casings for satellites.
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07/04/2016
Brunel University is to open its Advanced Metal Casting Centre (AMCC), where innovative technologies to make automotive components lighter and completely recyclable will be tested under industry conditions.
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05/04/2016
Thursday 21 April will see hundreds of design engineers, production professionals and senior manufacturing managers wing their way to The Concorde Centre at Manchester Airport to be part of The FAST Exhibition, where they will experience what many regard as the pinnacle of advanced UK assembly engineering excellence. Here, they will engage with exhibitors, discussing all of their fastening, bonding and assembly needs.
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31/03/2016
An international team of researchers has developed a new type of metal alloy that could make nuclear reactors safer and more stable in the long term. The new material is said to be stronger and lasts longer than steel - the metal of choice for current nuclear reactors. Nuclear power currently provides 11% of the world's electricity.
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22/03/2016
A team of engineers from Cornell University, led by Professor Rob Shepherd, have created a hybrid material that they say could enable robots or vehicles to change shape to carry out specific tasks.
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09/03/2016
A team of scientists, led by Dr Hari Babu Nadendla from the Brunel Centres for Advanced Solidification Techniques at Brunel University London, claims to have perfected the first ever grain refiner master alloy for magnesium-aluminium alloys.
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03/03/2016
Titanium additive manufacturer for the aerospace industry, Norsk Titanium has broken ground on a 3000 square metre European assembly and test centre outside Oslo, Norway.
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18/02/2016
Registration has now opened for the FAST Exhibition, co-located with the brand new Plastics, Prototyping and Metals Exhibition (PPME), which takes place at The Concorde Conference Centre in Manchester on 21st April 2016.
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12/02/2016
Panasonic has announced that it will start mass production of polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) moulding compounds for laser welding in March, 2016. The company says this will contribute to the enhancement of long-term reliability and the flexibility of design of automotive switches and sensors.
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09/02/2016
A team from the Carnegie Institution is trying to understand the rules that govern metallic glass's creation. High-pressure research can be used to probe structure on an atomic level and understand a material's state of order or disorder.
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04/02/2016
Magnesium is the lightest construction metal, but also the most reactive. This means that it is very sensitive to corrosion, making it difficult to use in corrosive environments. For more than a hundred years, magnesium producers have strived to improve its corrosion characteristics by developing new, more corrosion-resistant alloys, and developing various coatings.
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24/12/2015
A ‘super strong’ yet light structural metal with an extremely high specific strength and modulus has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
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18/12/2015
The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is to run an innovation support programme aimed specifically at small and medium sized businesses operating across the UK metals processing supply chain. This programme will enable companies to respond to the changing business environment caused by the recent downturn in the steel sector.
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07/12/2015
A partnership between The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute (NGI) and a Chinese aviation company could take graphene composite-based planes a step closer to reality.
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04/12/2015
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania claim to have created the thinnest plates that can be picked up and manipulated by hand.
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01/12/2015
A team of researchers, led by Dr Komgrit Lawanwong, at Hiroshima University has engineered some subtle refinements to metal forming techniques that have allowed them to prevent a problem called ‘springback’, which plagues the process of bending high-strength steel (HSS).
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26/11/2015
Stanford University scientists have discovered how to hide the reflective metal upper contact on the surface of solar cells and funnel light directly to the semiconductor below. It is said that the metal contacts that carries the electrical current hinders the cell’s efficiency.
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25/11/2015
Scientists led by Raffaele Mezzenga, professor of food and soft materials at ETH Zurich, have produced a three-dimensional mesh of gold that consists mostly of pores. It is the lightest gold nugget ever created. "The so-called aerogel is a thousand times lighter than conventional gold alloys. It is lighter than water and almost as light as air," claimed Mezzenga.
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23/11/2015
Scientists of KIT's Engler-Bunte Institute are working on a process for the case-hardening of steel with the aim of producing more efficient combustion engines. The process is called low-pressure carbonitration: At temperatures between 800 and 1050°C and total pressures below 50millibars, the surface of the components to be hardened is enriched with carbon and nitrogen and subsequently hardened by quenching.
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