#materialsscience

Learn about density and relative density, what they mean in physics and engineering, and how temperature and pressure affect the density of a material.

This is where I am held up tonight. Typing, deleting, and retyping something about muon decay for a lab report that is not due until Friday. I’m not sure how I feel about this semester. I have finished seven weeks and done so much, but it feels like no time has passed at all. I feel trapped in a viscious inbetween place where I am close to graduate school, but have done nothing concrete to apply. I have started my upperlevel course work, which I feared I would fail or be crushed under the unfamiliar mathematics, but I have been doing better than I have ever done in previous semesters. 

It does feel nice to have a semester filled with Physics courses, but I still feel a bit lost as far as where my place is. I keep reminding myself that I can’t let research take over all of my time, but it’s easy to get sucked in. 

I was attempting to analyze data I did not collect for an abstract I am submitting later this month. I began in an organized way, but I quickly fell down a rabbit hole of wikipedia desperation. The truth is I am lacking in the deep foundational background necessary to form opinions on how my measurements relate to eachother when the material has never been published on before. It is exciting and fun to be on a project studying something so novel, but it can be mentally exhausting trying to keep myself up to pace. I will reach a point where I don’t understand why a certain interaction is happening, open a new tab to try and understand, and within that new tab I find something else I don’t completely understand. 

I feel unbalanced in trying to do legitimate science and understand what I am doing, while also not spending all of my time looking up background for a project I am barely getting a few class credits for. 

I feel uncertain for the future but by golly am I so grateful to be doing what I am. I often self reflect before sharing how I am feeling towards a particular problem because I never want it to come across as spoiled or ungrateful. A professor outside of my research was discussing my analysis with me and he quite simply stated “Sara this is graduate level work, stop discouraging yourself”. To which I almost laughed because it was so shocking to hear. I expect so much from myself, and forget to realize that what I am doing is nothing I am expected to already know. For now I am enjoying the process and trying to not be too hard on myself. 

Ultimate Strength of Metals Accurately Predicted With New Theoretical Model

A new model is able to accurately determine the peak strength of polycrystalline metals.

To build safe and robust automobiles, spacecraft, and other technology, scientists attempt to know as much as possible about various metals’ properties. However, these properties can be tricky to estimate without extensive testing. Now, researchers have created a theoretical model able to estimate various pure and alloyed metals’ ultimate strength — a measurement defined as the amount of force necessary before a metal will deform.

The framework, created by Chandross and Argibay of Sandia National Laboratories, does not require fit parameters. It relies on the connection between ultimate strength and thermodynamics and was able to accurately predict the ultimate strengths of nearly 20 different metals.” The new model could improve research and development in many industries by allowing scientists to better understand the potential maximum achievable strengths of alloys and explore new design alternatives.

Credit: Materials World  By Idha Valeur