Take a Closer Look
Benzing said he got interested in the science of metals when he was in undergraduate and graduate school. During that time, he worked with mechanical engineers and materials specialists who liked “breaking stuff and slamming metal together.” They encouraged him to start working with an electron microscope to find out why metals were reacting in a certain way. Many summers, he also worked at a steel research center in Germany, where he helped design a type of steel alloy that gets stronger the faster you deform it.
In a car built with that type of steel alloy, for example, which hit a wall going about 31 mph (50 kph), the metal would be strong. If the car were going roughly 62 mph (100 kph), the metal would be even stronger.
You can see what the map of this medium manganese steel looked like above. Benzing said the team achieved this result by tailoring the colors in the map and the chemistry, or the ingredients, of the material. You check out Benzing’s published research here and on NIST’s website.
