Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
BAM! It's More Slippery Than Teflon (And Greener)
BAM - or boron-aluminum-magnesium alloy combined with titanium boride is super hard and slicker than Teflon. This "ceramic alloy" is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride. It's "greener" because it could save hundreds of millions of dollars in energy wasted every year in overcoming friction.
BAM is being touted as a lubricant coating that never needs to be replanished; it has a coefficient of friction of just 0.02 (Teflon is 0.05). Lubricated steel's coefficient of friction is 0.16.
Experts believe that coating rotor blades in pumps in common use in households and industry could save $180 million per year (9 billion kilowatt hours of energy).
“If you consider a pump, like a water pump or a hydraulic pump, it has a turbine that moves the fluid,” said Bruce Cook, an Ames Laboratory scientist and co-principal investigator on the four-year, $3 million project. “When the rotor spins, there’s friction generated at the contacting surface between the vanes and the housing, or stator. This friction translates into additional torque needed to operate the pump, particularly at start-up. In addition, the friction results in a degradation of the surfaces, which reduces efficiency and the life of the pump. It takes extra energy to get the pump started, and you can’t run it at its optimum (higher speed) efficiency because it would wear out more quickly.”
(Ceramic alloy coating made of boron, aluminum and magnesium)
The substrate is the mottled structure on the left-hand side of the photo and the coating is the thin, darker strip running along the edge of the steel.
The piece of steel in the picture shown above has a coating of BAM just 2-3 micrometers thick. See if it sounds like the frictionless coating provided by aliens in Clifford Simak's 1965 novel Way Station:
It was as if the knob was covered with some hard, slick coating, like a coat of brittle ice, on which the fingers slipped wihout exerting any pressure on the knob...There was something covering this house which made it slick and smooth - so smooth that dust could not cling upon its surface nor could weather stain it.
(Read more about Simak's frictionless coating)
Sounds like a pretty close match to me.
From Tough Nanocoatings Boost Industrial Energy Efficiency via Material slicker than Teflon discovered by accident.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/26/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 4 )
Related News Stories - (" Material ")
MXenes - Atomic-Thin Metal Sheets Now Easier To Make
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.' - John Edwards, 1934.
Do We Still Need Orbiting Factories?
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.
MIT Self-Assembling Reprogrammable Materials
'Faster the cubes moved; faster the circle revolved; the pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their square bases...' - Abraham Merritt, 1920.
Tiny Mining - Extract Precious Industrial Minerals From Your Own Body
'Jim, I saw them reduce four of my doctors and nurses into those little cubes!' - Gene Roddenberry, 1968.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
I Am Alarmed By Efforts To Teach AIs And Robots To Hate
'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
MXenes - Atomic-Thin Metal Sheets Now Easier To Make
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.'
Do We Still Need Orbiting Factories?
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.'
Space Weather Forecasters Surprised By Strong Solar Storm
'Space-weather men had been placed at their disposal...'
JWST Finds New World Of Turbulent Silicate Clouds
'THIS is Ceti Alpha V!'
3D Printed Cheesecake Not Quite Food Replicator Quality
With each successive print, our model needed to incorporate more structural ingredients to minimize print failures.
Spectroscopic Analysis Of DART Impact Debris Cloud (SF Prediction)
'... Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.'
Modern App Provides Video Technology From Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'
'A special spot-wavex scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully.'
Win $250K By Reading Ancient Scrolls Carbonized By Vesuvius
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'
Toy-Like Robot Well-Being Coaches Are The Best
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!
AI-Trained Snack App Avatar Goes On Dates For You
'... who let their handbag computers carry all the conversation.'
M-Dwarf Stars May Not Have Habitable Planets
'Thus it came about that the search for a planetiferous sun near a white dwarf star was not unduly prolonged...'
Too Soon To Doom Lunar Farside Observatories
'Earth never shone there, but life was good.'
Amitabh Bachchan Wins Personality Protection
'He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.'
LIAM F1 UWT Clever Rooftop Windmill
'...a windmill on his roof...'
Scent-Identifying Robot Uses Machine Learning
'It's picking up diphenyl compounds and tetrahydrocarbons...'
