Researchers from Northeastern University are among the many
scientists helping NASA use the weightlessness of space to design stronger
materials here on Earth.
Structural alloys might not sound familiar, but they are an
integral part of everyday materials, such as aircraft wings, car bodies, engine
blocks, or gas pipelines. These materials are produced through solidification—a
process similar to the making of ice cubes.
“Solidification happens all around us, either naturally, as during the
crystallization of familiar snow-flakes in the atmosphere, or in technological
processes used to fabricate a host of materials, from the large silicon
crystals used for solar panels to the making of almost any man-made object or
structure that needs to withstand large forces, like a turbine blade,” said
Northeastern University Prof. Alain Karma, who was a collaborator in this study