WHAT IS THE TOUGHEST MATERIAL

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Fantastic and.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Weird. Welcome to the Weird Science Facts Podcast. We provide
a five minute or less daily podcast on weird science,
debunking myths and old sayings. So join Doctor Carlos in
this daily diet of fun, strange and weird world.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
They're fat, Well, what is the toughest material ever? We
know what the hardest material ever, which is a diamond.
But see the problem with the diamond though, even though
it's considered one of the toughest materials in the world,
diamond is very brittle and it doesn't have toughness. And
what happens is once you increase the strength of the material,

(00:54):
you lower its toughness. And hard materials again are brittle
and what ends up happening is they can crack, just
like a diamond though, even though it's tough the hardest material,
you can't put a dent in a diamond, but you
can crack one. So the toughest material ever test is

(01:14):
an alloy of chromium coboal and nickel chromium cobol and nickel.
It's called a cr con I or krokone is the
toughest material ever tested. Its characteristics can make it useful
in the construction of aircraft or spacecraft, and toughness is
a measure of materials resilience against fracturing. Remember it is
not the same thing as hardness. Often when you increase

(01:39):
the strength of the material, again you lower its toughness,
and hard materials are brittle. So what is remarkable about
Kroconi is that there's no trade off. As it gets stronger,
it actually gets tougher. So it's a very fascinating kind
of material. Again, it won't crack. It has this resilient

(01:59):
prop so this is fascinating to see how they're going
to use this material.