Liquidmetal and Vitreloy are commercial names of a series of amorphous metal alloys developed by a California Institute of Technology (Caltech) research team and marketed by Liquidmetal Technologies. Liquidmetal alloys combine a number of desirable material features, including high tensile strength, excellent corrosion resistance, very high coefficient of restitution and excellent anti-wearing characteristics, while also being able to be heat-formed in processes similar to thermoplastics. Despite the name, they are not liquid at room temperature.[1]
Liquidmetal was introduced for commercial applications in 2003.[2] It is used for, among other things, golf clubs, watches, and covers of cell phones.
The alloy was the result of a research program into amorphous metals carried out at Caltech. It was the first of a series of experimental alloys that could achieve an amorphous structure at relatively slow cooling rates. Amorphous metals had been made before, but only in small batches because cooling rates needed to be in the millions of degrees per second. For example, amorphous wires could be fabricated by splat quenching a stream of molten metal on a spinning disk. Because Vitreloy allowed such slow cooling rates, production of larger batch sizes was possible. More recently, a number of additional alloys have been added to the Liquidmetal portfolio. These alloys also retain their amorphous structure after repeated re-heating, allowing them to be used in a wide variety of traditional machining processes.
Characteristics
Liquid metal, created by Dr. Atakan Peker, contain atoms of significantly different sizes. They form a dense mix with low free volume. Unlike crystalline metals, there is no obvious melting point at which viscosity drops suddenly. Vitreloy behaves more like other glasses, in that its viscosity drops gradually with increased temperature. At high temperature, it behaves in a plastic manner, allowing the mechanical properties to be controlled relatively easily during casting. The viscosity prevents the atoms moving enough to form an ordered lattice, so the material retains its amorphous properties even after being heat-formed.
The alloys have relatively low softening temperatures, allowing casting of complex shapes without needing finishing. The material properties immediately after casting are much better than those of conventional metals; usually, cast metals have worse properties than forged or wrought ones. The alloys are also malleable at low temperatures (400 °C for the earliest formulation), and can be molded. The low free volume also results in low shrinkage during cooling. For all of these reasons, Liquidmetal can be formed into complex shapes using processes similar to thermoplastics,[3] which makes Liquidmetal a potential replacement for many applications where plastics would normally be used.
Due to their non-crystalline (amorphous) structures, Liquidmetals are harder than alloys of titanium or aluminum of similar composition. The zirconium and titanium based Liquidmetal alloys achieved yield strength of over 1723 MPa, nearly twice the strength of conventional crystalline titanium alloys (Ti-6Al-4V is ~830 MPa), and about the strength of high-strength steels and some highly engineered bulk
Uses
Liquidmetal combines a number of features that are normally not found in any one material. This makes them useful in a wide variety of applications.
One of the first commercial uses of Liquidmetal was in golf clubs made by the company, where the highly elastic metal was used in portions of the club face.[5] These were highly rated by users, but the product was later dropped, in part because the prototypes shattered after fewer than 40 hits.[6] Since then, Liquidmetal has appeared in other sports equipment, including the cores of golf balls, skis, baseball and softball bats, and tennis racquets.[7]
The ability to be cast and molded, combined with high wear resistance, has also led to Liquidmetal being used as a replacement for plastics in some applications.[8] It has been used on the casing of late-model SanDisk "Cruzer Titanium" USB flash drives
Commercial alloys
A range of zirconium-based alloys have been marketed under this trade name. Some example compositions are listed below, in molar percent:
- An early alloy, Vitreloy 1:[12]
- Zirconium: 41.2, beryllium: 22.5, titanium: 13.8, copper: 12.5, nickel: 10
- A variant, Vitreloy 4 (Vit4):
- Zirconium: 46.75, beryllium: 27.5, titanium: 8.25, copper: 7.5, nickel: 10
- Vitreloy 105 (Vit105):[13]
- Zirconium: 52.5, titanium: 5, copper: 17.9, nickel: 14.6, aluminium: 10
Licensed uses
- Apple Inc., acquired a perpetual, exclusive license to use the technologies developed after 2010 in consumer electronics.[14]
- The Swatch Group, was granted an exclusive license to utilize Liquidmetal alloys developed after 2010 in its timepieces.[15]
External links
References
- Liquidmetal Coatings Material liquidmetal.com^
- John Herrman. Giz Explains: What Is Liquidmetal? Gizmodo, 2010-08-17, retrieved 2024-08-31^
- Liquid metal behaves like plastic Manufacturing Engineering, March 2003^