ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Professor Harry Bhadeshia is the Tata Steel Professor of Physical Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge and Professor of Computational Metallurgy at POSTECH. He graduated with a BSc from the City of London Polytechnic, followed by a PhD at the University of Cambridge. His research is concerned with the theory of solid-state transformations in metals, particularly multicomponent steels, with the goal of creating novel alloys and processes with the minimum use of resources.
SUMMARY:
To mix metaphors, steel sets the gold standard when it comes to structural materials. There are literally hundreds of phase transformations that can be manipulated to achieve a rich variety of properties, at a cost that is affordable. As a consequence, there is more steel produced today than ever before.
When a new material is proposed, it is natural to wax lyrical about how its properties compare with steel. Contemporary examples of comparisons of this kind are the carbon nanotubes where resources have been wasted in proposing applications such as space elevators, when an elementary thermodynamic formula would have proved the concept untenable.
In reporting on graphene research at Manchester University, the BBC states that “a micro-thin layer of graphene is stronger than steel and it has been dubbed a “wonder material” because of its potential uses”, under a sub-title “Planes and cars”. The story reported is about a graphene light bulb, but even this aspect is not correct since the light source is in fact a diode.
My intention in this talk is not to focus on misleading publicity about bad science, but rather to show how comparisons can be made with steel without compromising facts. The problem is that such comparisons require dedicated, long term research and development, and scientists today do not seem to be willing to commit to the work necessary before espousing publicity