Japanese scientists may have just discovered "transparent aluminum"

[Borgholio]

http://gizmodo.com/japanese-researchers ... 1739673940

Scientists in Japan say they’ve fashioned glass that’s almost as strong as steel.

The ability to make super strong glass could lead to a whole new generation of windows in buildings and vehicles, but could also prove useful in screens for electronics, like tablets, computers, and smartphones. The team, from the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science, had their findings published earlier this month in Scientific Reports by Nature.

“We are looking to commercialize the technique within five years,” University of Tokyo assistant professor Atsunobu Masuno told Asahi Shimbun.

Here’s the secret ingredient in such tough glass: alumina. It’s an oxide of aluminum, and mixing it with silicon dioxide makes glass way tougher. Problem is, when scientists have tried to use large amounts of alumina in the past, it caused the mixture to crystallize as soon as it touched any kind of container, preventing glass from being formed.

So the Tokyo team brewed up a method of making glass that required no container at all: they used gas to push the chemical components into the air, where they synthesized together. The result? A transparent ultra glass that’s 50% alumina and rivals the Young’s modulus of steel and iron, which measures rigidity and elasticity in solids.

The practical uses are broad, since the study notes that alumina glass made via aerodynamic levitation can yield a product that’s thin, light, and has excellent optical properties. We say, bring on commercialization.

So basically by putting 50% alumina in the mixture, the glass becomes nearly as hard as steel. Not quite exactly the same thing as fully transparent metallic aluminum, but still very neat. I can see this having applications in not just electronic displays or vehicle windows, but also in construction. Imagine a load-bearing glass wall.

[Esquire]

I was about to make a joke about checking that all the Japanese aquaria still have all their whales, but then I remembered we were talking about Japan.

Anyway, neat! Assuming that this new material isn't hellishly expensive, unusually toxic, and doesn't break down over time, electronics just got a lot more durable and architects have a new weapon in the ongoing fight against privacy.

[biostem]

I thought that the current glass-making process involved floating said glass on a thin layer of molten tin...

[Guardsman Bass]

Neat stuff. If it's cost-effective to produce en masse, then we could see it incorporated into a lot of places where you want strength and don't need totally transparent materials.

[Purple]

Any word on just how transparent this thing is? Like could it be used as a substitute for glass on armored vehicles or something?

[Borgholio]

Any word on just how transparent this thing is? Like could it be used as a substitute for glass on armored vehicles or something?

It IS actually glass. You can use it in any application that you would normally use glass with. It's just glass that's nearly as strong as steel.

[LaCroix]

Isn't this already used in the Apache helicopter windows?

[Darmalus]

If you want "transparent aluminum" then we already have that, it's just called sapphire glass and is 100% alumina. Used as windows on pressure vessels and is hella expensive.

Here's hoping this new, strong glass works out on the factory line as well as the laboratory.

[Sea Skimmer]

A number of transparent ceramic aluminums exist. They've also all inferior visual light transparency to actual glass, often in the form of a green tint. Some are so bad you can't really use them for vehicle windows at all. A lot of missile sensor domes are sapphire though. So are the windows on the big manned gun couplas on uparmored hummves, but not those on the doors and windows of the actual vehicle. Too expensive with present production methods.

Since this new method being announced uses 50% glass one might imagine it has very good optical properties, perhaps no disadvantage at all. That would be really handy if were it somewhat weaker then the best existing transparent ceramics.

Isn't this already used in the Apache helicopter windows?

I don't think so. At least that isn't standard on A-D model US Apaches, they have armor glass on the front facing cockpit windows, and the side windows are actually just ploycarbonate and only able to deflect rifle bullets at very long and favorable ranges and angles. Most of the armor on the aircraft is a bunch of boron carbide panels on the seats and about the bottoms of the cockpits, and then metal armor is incorporated directly into the rotor hub and ammo drum casings.

Browsing the internet for a second it appears some of the latest export Apaches may have sapphire armor front panels. Which would make me expect the AH-64E does too.

ALON for record, would be better then anything else for stopping bullets, the disparity in weight is something like 40% of glass mass needed, but its just not good for transmitting light over a wide arc. It acts sort of like a directional filter. So you can take a clear photograph through it, but if you sweep your face over it it doesn't look as good.

[Purple]

When I asked about windows I meant specifically small ones. Like say the little windows you get on a tank cupola. I figure that on those money would be less of an issue. (I am drawing a tank in 3D for some other forum and this might be a cook new thing to add to it.)

[LaCroix]

Yeah, I meant that sapphire glas (which is basically a transparent aluminium). Of course, if that new 50% aluminium glas is giving better results for less, the better. We might finally have burglar and stormproof windows.

[Purple]

Yeah, I meant that sapphire glas (which is basically a transparent aluminium). Of course, if that new 50% aluminium glas is giving better results for less, the better. We might finally have burglar and stormproof windows.

If by "we" you mean americans I am not sure what the point would be. Like you build houses out of that plywood stuff (drywall or something) that people can just punch through. I knew a girl a few years back on a forum who jumped off her bed, fell through the floor and broke her leg. So like what's the point of impenetrable glass if the burglar can just open up the outside wall?

[LaCroix]

Yeah, I meant that sapphire glas (which is basically a transparent aluminium). Of course, if that new 50% aluminium glas is giving better results for less, the better. We might finally have burglar and stormproof windows.

If by "we" you mean americans I am not sure what the point would be. Like you build houses out of that plywood stuff (drywall or something) that people can just punch through. I knew a girl a few years back on a forum who jumped off her bed, fell through the floor and broke her leg. So like what's the point of impenetrable glass if the burglar can just open up the outside wall?

How are you getting the idea I would be an US-American? My location is public knowledge. And by "we", I mean the world as a whole. And for most of Europe, the main problem in burglar retention remains that even if perfectly safe window frames exist, windows can still be smashed, or cut and then knocked out in a controlled fashion, which is pretty silent in comparison to a violent shattering. This glas would need to be cut very deep before you could knock it out, so it would take quite long, and thus work as a perfect deterrent (if it could be defeated that way - combine it with polycarbonate and it might be eternal (but not shiny and chrome... ).

[Purple]

How are you getting the idea I would be an US-American?

My apologies. I am partaking in something like 5 online discussions in different forums right now and all of those guys are americans and I was posting quickly without investing too much time to think things through so I did not even check your username, let alone location. The error is thus 100% mine.

And by "we", I mean the world as a whole. And for most of Europe, the main problem in burglar retention remains that even if perfectly safe window frames exist, windows can still be smashed, or cut and then knocked out in a controlled fashion, which is pretty silent in comparison to a violent shattering. This glas would need to be cut very deep before you could knock it out, so it would take quite long, and thus work as a perfect deterrent (if it could be defeated that way - combine it with polycarbonate and it might be eternal (but not shiny and chrome... ).

Now this is interesting.

[Elheru Aran]

Having some experience in the field, I should note that American construction codes are *not* that shitty, and if you can just 'punch through' plywood, either it's completely rotten or you're the Hulk. Cheap fiber-board, sure, but that's not plywood. You might be able to punch through 3/16 Lauan, but they don't use that stuff for structural purposes.

Now *drywall* you can punch through, but with 2x4 studs on a standard 16-inch centering, you're taking chances on breaking your knuckles. Not to mention there's generally insulation, live electrical wires, and PVC/CPVC or copper pipe (or whatever, depending on when the house was built) running through the wall via holes in the studding. And if you're coming at it from the exterior, you have to deal with the siding (vinyl, wood, composite, whatever), house-wrap, and OSB sheathing. Much easier to just lever a window open or break it, which would be where the tough glass comes in. Never mind that depending on your location you might be dealing with building materials like concrete block, solid logs, adobe, terracotta stucco siding...

As for your story of a girl going through the floor. Odds are the floor was shit to start with. Either it was in bad condition on the underside, not adequately supported, or never meant for actual residential use (such as an attic or service space converted into a bedroom). Standard American flooring code is minimum 2x6 studs on a 16" center-- solid OSB laid down on top of that as a sub-floor and then whatever material the owner wants (carpet, vinyl, laminate, hardwood, tile etc). That's not taking into account concrete slab floors or multiple story construction, which I haven't dealt with but we do have adequate code for.

Fact is, modern American building quality is kinda shitty, but it's not that bad. I loathe drywall, but it's quicker and easier than plaster on lath or whatever you Euros use, and generally burglars don't take the whole 'hey let's kick this wall down' tactic.

[aerius]

Here's hoping this new, strong glass works out on the factory line as well as the laboratory.

This is the original article which also tells you how they made the glass.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15233

Let's just say that floating the powdered ingredients in air then melting it together with lasers, then taking those 2mm balls of glass and fusing them together afterwards isn't exactly something that's going well in mass production.

As for the "strong as steel" part, that's misleading. Just because it has the same modulus of elasticity doesn't mean it's as strong; it's as stiff but not necessarily as strong. Real world examples. Brass and titanium alloys have the same Young's modulus, yet titanium can have up to 3 times the tensile strength as well as being much harder. In other words, if I had 2 identical chains, the titanium one can hold a weight that's up to 3 times larger without breaking.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, it's all in the wording. Strong=! ductility, brittleness, etc... Steel is honestly not *crazy* strong. It's pretty good, sure, but the reason it's such a good material is that it covers all the bases fairly well. It won't break if you hit it with a hammer, it can take a certain amount of heat without degrading unacceptably in strength, it doesn't corrode rapidly, and so on. Glass, while strong in certain ways, is also very weak in other ways, as anybody who's ever played baseball near homes can attest...

[Adam Reynolds]

A number of transparent ceramic aluminums exist. They've also all inferior visual light transparency to actual glass, often in the form of a green tint. Some are so bad you can't really use them for vehicle windows at all. A lot of missile sensor domes are sapphire though. So are the windows on the big manned gun couplas on uparmored hummves, but not those on the doors and windows of the actual vehicle. Too expensive with present production methods.

Would that work at all with night vision goggles? That would certainly be a reason to not use them on helicopters.

[Elheru Aran]

Attack helicopters do have FLIR capability, which uses sensors attached to the body of the aircraft. No particular concern about using NVG there.

[Sea Skimmer]

Would that work at all with night vision goggles? That would certainly be a reason to not use them on helicopters.

They actually can be made to work very well for the IR bands used by all forms of night vision. The normal googles are spread far away from the midwave FLIR most military equipment uses, but longwave is becoming more prolific, usually in duel band systems. This is actually less of a problem for this sort of material then high grades of visual light transmittance. So much so that its already being used for the exit windows for some high power 100kw kind of laser weapon projects.

The lenses on some military periscopes, tanks don't have windows even in the commanders coupla, FLIR sensors and other optics like missile seekers already are some kind of ceramic, usually spinel. The main reason to do this is high strength and high abrasion resistance in the face of say, rock strikes or hard blowing sand. The worst ceramics are far superior to glass on those properties. The weight saving is basically only a bonus in these applications. For missiles its generally a case of low weight for high heat strength, and sometimes to also deliberately filter out unwanted wavelengths. It's not meant to be armor against fired weapons or explosions in any these cases.

Debris protection has also seen them strongly considered for spacecraft, that research is pretty advanced but I don't know if anything has actually orbited using it. As the processes get cheaper for making it we'll also start seeing a fair number of large windows being ceramics, mainly just because of how absurdly heavy realllly big glass windows can get and how hard those are to make in the first place. Going big is easier with polycarbonate but that's distinctly inferior as a window.

Sooner then later spinel should get cheap enough that we'll be getting items like ballistic google lenses made of it and even full curved facemasks. If you keep the thickness down the transparncy is still pretty good, and it'd make a visor that stops handgun rounds feasible. Maybe even something more before one's neck needs a powered support.