Amorphous metal as ideal diaphragm material?

[454Casull]

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Apparently very strong, resistant to corrosion, stiff, doesn't absorb energy YET has high damping...

What do you think?

[Vikash]

doesn't absorb energy YET has high damping

Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

The first article mentions the boucing ball thing which to me says that it stores energy and releases it with little loss, thus harldy any damping. To me this sounds like a material that will potentially ring like crazy.

[baggystevo82]

oooooo zirconium beryllium and titanium alloy

I don't know if a low Youngs modulus would be ideal for a diaphram though, dont know how low they mean by low though, perhaps just low for the hardness it has or something.

I guess it damps well as there is such a variety of different sized elements in the alloy, so no propper regular structure is formed? resisting the transmission of waves. Could work!! Sorry about changing my mind through this! Im reading your links as I write this, hehe. Strange strange material of strangeness though!!

Steve

[baggystevo82]

To me this sounds like a material that will potentially ring like crazy

Maybe, but it's structure isn't like that of any material I know of, so I wouldn't be surprised if it creates 'contradictions' to more normal materials like that. Someone will have to try it out

Steve

[sreten]

Utter crap IMO,

possibly the best example (golf clubs) where pure engineering
is ignored by those who think that they they can ignore the
basic laws of physics to misguide the ignorant.


sreten.

[baggystevo82]

isnt it being a little ignorant totally disregarding a completely new development like this without trying it first? An amorphous metal is a pretty huge step forward in materials. Perhaps it won't suit speakers very well, but im sure it will find a very useful place somewhere

Steve

[baggystevo82]

The first article mentions the boucing ball thing which to me says that it stores energy and releases it with little loss, thus harldy any damping. To me this sounds like a material that will potentially ring like crazy.

The reason the ball bounces so well is because there is no plastic deformation at the point of impact, just a small elastic deformation which recovers straight away. IMO I think this material could still damp well under those conditions

Steve

[phase_accurate]

An amorphous metal is a pretty huge step forward in materials.

Amorphous metals are known for quite long. In the seventies they were quite fashionable as magnetic materials for tape heads, shieldings etc.
I once heard a small strip of such material dropped onto a table: the soud was like shattering glass !!

Regards

Charles

[baggystevo82]

aren't things like that sintered? it's not crystaline but not amorphous as such if they are, though they could probably still advertise it as such. Sintered materials can be pretty damn hard too (tungsten carbide inserts for machine tooling for example). i knew nothing of this 'new' material before reading this and the links etc, so i really cant dispute that strongly the existence of such materials back in the seventies.

Steve

[Mudge]

I petition that amorphous and metal can't really be used in the same sentence.
Now, poly crystalline, with widely distributed values for the size/geometry of the crystals, now that I can accept.

The behaviour of such a metal would be as described in the article, very tough to cut since inevitably you will try to cut across single small crystaline areas (hard), the structure would also exhibit very low damping, as with most metals. However, due to the distribution of crystaline resonances, it wouldn't ring as such, but would be more like constrained layer damping, with many resonances working against each other.

Defining the fundamental (as opposed to basic) laws of physics in ways engineers can use is very dificult