Strong and stretchy at once: Kyoto's steel timing trick reaches nearly 140% stretch

Engineers usually have to choose: a metal can be very strong, or it can stretch a long way before breaking — rarely both. A Kyoto University team led by Si Gao changed the timing instead. In their iron-nickel-carbon steel, one strengthening process starts first, and a second — a crystal-structure change — is held back by adjusting the carbon until the first is nearly spent. Handing over from one to the next kept the steel hardening as it stretched, reaching nearly 140% uniform elongation, far beyond the usual 60–70% range, in work published in Materials Today.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation