As a common alloy, steel plays an important role in automobiles, and the body, chassis, and power systems are dominated by steel.
Strength, ductility, and toughness are three important properties of steel, but generally difficult to have them all For example, if you increase strength, you can lose toughness or cause a decrease in ductility. As a result, materials engineers and engineers are looking for a new generation of steel.
Recently, the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Hong Kong University, in collaboration with researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States, launched the Super Steel project and made significant progress in the new Super D&P steel. The new steel is highly resistant to breaking and has strong strength for advanced industrial applications.
The two teams published their research report in the academic journal Science on May 8.
It is understood that the team has significantly improved the strength, ductility, and other performance of D&P steel.
The data shows that this new super D&P steel has a yield resistance to deformation of approximately 2Gpa and resistance to breaking of 102MPam ½. At present, industrial steel production has the highest yield strength of 1.7 Gpa, and the highest toughness of steel applied to bridge cable has not surpassed 65 MPam ½.
How does the new Super D&P steel achieve this high level?
It is reported that the new super D&P steel has a unique anti-fracture feature through a “high strength inducement of multiple layers” toughening mechanism, in which several micro-cracks have formed under the main fracture surface, and micro-cracks can effectively absorb energy from external forces, making the new super D&P steel toughness is much higher than existing Steel
Besides, the new Super D&P steel industry is simple to process and low raw material costs. It can be made through traditional rolling and annealing processes without the need for complex manufacturing routes and special equipment. This new type of steel can be used in automotive, military vehicles, high-grade flak-proof vests, bridge cables, aerospace, etc