Thursday, August 03, 2006

New X-Ray microbeam answers 20-year-old metals question - EurekaAlert
What happens to metals when you bend them? The question isn't as easy as you may think. A research team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Southern California, using a unique X-ray probe, has gathered the first direct evidence showing that, on average, a 20-year-old model is a useful predictor of stresses and strains in deformed metal.

But the measurements also show that averages can be deceiving. They mask extremely large variations in stresses that, until now, had gone on undetected. The experiments have implications for important practical problems in sheet metal forming and control of metal fatigue, which is responsible for many structural materials failures...

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