Transparent aluminum

[GSRCRXsi]

Originally posted by Calesta@Aug 28 2004, 12:46 AM
It said somewhere in there that they had optical quality transparent aluminum alloy with 95% the strength of normal non-transparent stuff. I'd say that's pretty solid. You almost never use Aluminum for construction in its elemental form anyway. Most structural metals are alloyed with something to give better hardness / strength properties than just a pure element.

hmmm. i took it to say that 95% of the glasses they produced were transparent. i didnt see any talk of comparing it or its strength to regular alluminum.

maybe it does have mettalic properies, but from that article, it doesnt say anything about it.

 

[phunky.buddha]

Ah, you're partially right.... the 95% was about the optical clarity- my mistake. But here's the bit about mechanical properties:

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The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline alumina.

 

[GSRCRXsi]

to me all that says is that its harder then regular glass. and i thought thats what they were getting at. and what is polycrystalline allumina? does that have properties similar to alluminum?

 

[Havok]

If you have the money for a clear aluminum block, the air intake (should it even apply--boost ownz j00!!1) would be the least of your hp worries.

 

[phunky.buddha]

Originally posted by GSRCRXsi+Aug 28 2004, 04:02 PM-->

to me all that says is that its harder then regular glass. and i thought thats what they were getting at. and what is polycrystalline allumina? does that have properties similar to alluminum?

[post=383061]Quoted post[/post]​

I would imagine so- "polycrystalline" could easily just be a more technical way to talk about the crystal lattice structure that all metals have.

Havok@Aug 28 2004, 05:13 PM
If you have the money for a clear aluminum block, the air intake (should it even apply--boost ownz j00!!1) would be the least of your hp worries.

[post=383080]Quoted post[/post]​

Very true.

 

[MikeBergy]

Originally posted by Celerity@Aug 23 2004, 09:50 AM
Old news, actually. Transparent aluminum has been around for about 4 years.

And personally, not only would I dig a transparent engine, but the plastic engine models they sell at KB will only cost me about 20 hp loss

-> Steve

[post=380536]Quoted post[/post]​

You could build an engine block, at least most of it, out of plastic if you wanted to. There are plastics that can tolerate engine heat, and are stiff enough to hold up to the vibration. All you would need to do would be to build the sleeves and reciprocating assembly and assembly support out of metal. The plastic part would just be for the oil storage and oil and coolant passageways. It would be stupid from a manufacturing standpoint though.

 

[phunky.buddha]

Hmm. That's very true. I didn't think about plastics... they've come a long way.

 

[jeffie7]

CA smog guys would love having cars with see through engines... "welp the car passes the sniffer test but I can see that your pistons are not factory so heres a big FAILED stamp on your smog paper"......

bastards!

 

[phunky.buddha]

That would really really suck.