Tuesday, 21 May, 2013

Despite being merely microns thick, these impurity crystals jut like skyscrapers from the surface of NF 616 cast stainless steel, a specialized engineering material. All engineering materials contain small amounts of impurities, which play an important role in the mechanical properties of the material. This image was captured with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Courtesy [...]

When big tech goes bad, we ask: How do engineers design fail-safe mechanisms for nuclear weapons, radioactive waste, spaceships?