[NewCandle] New prospective matrix material for high temp LENR

[Horace Heffner]

Here is a whole new twist on dendrites (for me anyway) - dendrites  
*in* glass.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219172129.htm

http://tinyurl.com/9a648r

Excess energy might be available from various hydrogen-to-lattice  
reactions, including Ti + p and Ti+ D. Given Be can be a major  
ingredient, this stuff is a prime candidate for LENR excess heat.  It  
would be interesting to test this material in powdered and thin film  
form, though high tunneling rates probably have to be maintained via  
thermal gradients and pressure gradients, which are easier to  
maintain in bulk volumes.

Related PhD thesis:

"Designing Bulk Metallic Glass Matrix Composites with High Toughness  
and Tensile Ductility"

by Douglas Clayton Hofmann

http://etd.caltech.edu/etd/available/etd-09102008-101837/unrestricted/ 
Hofmann_PhD.pdf

http://tinyurl.com/9m5nw5

 From abstract at:

http://etd.caltech.edu/etd/available/etd-09102008-101837/

"Metallic glasses have been the subject of intense scientific study  
since the 1960s, owing to their unique properties such as high  
strength, large elastic limit, high hardness, and amorphous  
microstructure. However, bulk metallic glasses have not been used in  
the high strength structural applications for which they have so much  
potential, owing to a highly localized failure mechanism that results  
in catastrophic failure during unconfined loading. In this thesis,  
bulk metallic glass matrix composites are designed with the combined  
benefits of high yield strengths and tensile ductility. This  
milestone is achieved by first investigating the length scale of the  
highly localized deformation, known as shear bands, that governs  
fracture in all metallic glasses. Under unconfined loading, a shear  
band grows to a certain length that is dependent on the fracture  
toughness of the glass before a crack nucleates and fracture occurs.  
Increasing the fracture toughness and ductility involves adding  
microstructural stabilization techniques that prevent shear bands  
from lengthening and promotes formation of multiple shear bands. To  
accomplish this, we develop in-situ formed bulk metallic glass matrix- 
composites with soft crystalline dendrites whose size and  
distribution are controlled through a novel semi-solid processing  
technique. The new alloys have a dramatically increased room- 
temperature ductility and a fracture toughness that appears to be  
similar to the toughest steels. Owing to their low modulus, the  
composites are therefore among the toughest known materials, a claim  
that has recently been confirmed independently by a fracture  
mechanics group. We extend our toughening strategy to a titanium- 
vanadium-based glass-dendrite composite system with density as low as  
4.97 g/cm[...]. The new low-density composites rival the mechanical  
properties of the best structural crystalline Ti alloys. We  
demonstrate new processing techniques available in the highly  
toughened composites: room temperature cold rolling, work hardening,  
and thermoplastic forming. This thesis is a proven road map for  
developing metallic glass composites into real structural engineering  
materials."

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/