If Professor William Johnson is successful with the new process, you may see lots of structural glass in use:
A new breakthrough in superspeed pulse mould technology will allow aeroplanes, mobile phone casings and suchlike to be made out of a miraculous type of glass which is as tough as metal, according to the inventors of the new process.
So-called “metallic glass” has been well known since 1960 and has been in industrial production since the 1990s. It is a metal alloy, but one with the disordered structure of glass — not formed into crystals the way most metals are.
The crystalline structure of metal is a disadvantage, making it weak. Unfortunately, ordinary glasses — while strong and rigid — generally crack and shatter easily. What’s wanted is a metallic glass, made of metal but with a non-crystalline structure like window glass. This won’t crack or fracture, but will be much stronger than an equivalent object made of ordinary metal.
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“We uniformly heat the glass at least a thousand times faster than anyone has before,” says William Johnson, engineering prof at Caltech.
Using this method the metalglass is heated up, moulded and cooled to solid again before crystals have any chance to form: the new part is still metalglass, not rubbishy regular metal.
“We end up with inexpensive, high-performance, precision parts made in the same way plastic parts are made — but made of a metal that’s 20 times stronger and stiffer than plastic,” boasts Johnson.
