China Steel Stretchable Strong
Photo credit: Konstantin Makarenko | Skoltech via SCMP
Scientists from Northeastern University in Shenyang in China have developed a new kind of steel that is not only extremely strong, but also stretchable. A fingernail-sized piece can reportedly hold up a 2-ton car without facturing, thanks to its ability to stretch by up to 25%. Creating this material required the team to melt raw alloyed material at 650-800&Deg; degrees Celsius and let it air cool, resulting in the special structure.


China Steel Stretchable Strong
This structure then needs to be cooled further using liquid nitrogen, before it is heat treated at 300&Deg; Celsius to improve its stability. Most importantly, manufacturing this new type of steel could potentially reduce the cost of producing a ton by around $75 USD, while also cutting the coal equivalent carbon emissions by over 100kg.

China Steel Stretchable Strong

The associated processes proposed in our study – especially the forging procedures – have long been widely used in many companies and production environments to produce parts like axes, ship shafts and so on. There is already large-scale ship shaft with a tonnage scale based on the forging. Our process is consistent with its preparation with only a few adjustments in some process parameters,” said Li Yunjie, Lead Author and postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University’s State Key Laboratory.