'NASA's Commercial Invention of the Year' created in Cleveland: Growing STEM

Описание: NASA Glenn engineers Chirs Kantzos and Tim Smith can now call themselves inventors too. They are the minds behind NASA Glenn's breakthrough material. A superalloy developed for extreme conditions of air and spaceflight. It's called GRX-810. Which was selected as NASA’s Commercial Invention of the Year for 2025. Picked for its ability to advance NASA’s mission as well as benefit the public through commercialization.

"In a rocket engine, you can go from 0 to 1,000 or 2,000 degrees within a couple of seconds,” said research engineer and co-inventor, Christ Kantzos. “So, we need a material that's robust and reusable. And that's one of the big selling points for GRX-810 is it can stand many reuses."

Parts begin as metal powder inside a 3D printer. A laser melts the extremely thin layers together. Slowly a part is formed. The true test is heat. Temperatures that would cause other alloys to fail, is no problem for GRX-810. Making it ideal for stronger, more durable parts in rocket and airplane engines. The secret? The metal powder is coated with a ceramic before it is printed. This happens at a nano scale level. Particles so small, they use sound waves to get the correct mixture. And to see them, they need an electron microscope.

"Every time we put a new sample in here, we see something that no one has ever really seen before,” said materials researcher and co-inventor, Tim Smith. “You know, we're looking at new compositions, new alloys. And every time when you get these type of magnification you see something new."

Read more: https://www.wkyc.com/article/tech/sci... --

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