Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Research Materials

NASA plans to build robots that explore frozen worlds from metallic glass so they don’t shatter

"Cold enough to shatter robots" is pretty cold in my book.

Alexandru Micu by Alexandru Micu
December 2, 2016
in Materials, News, Space
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Metallic glass might be the key to exploring the frozen bits of the Universe, NASA believes. They’re working on a new class of this material that’s hard-wearing, strong, and should work just fine at very, very low temperatures.

Image credits NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Exploring space isn’t only hard work — it’s also incredibly cold. So cold in fact that the metal we make our crafts of just can’t take it. So rovers like the Curiosity, that poke around on frozen balls of space rock, require a constant flow of heated lubricant to keep working. This means we have to supply them with extra lubricant, delivery systems, and heating — all amounting to added mass and power drains.

The new class of metallic glass NASA’s been working on, called bulk metallic glass (BMG) could provide an alternative. The agency’s latest tests have shown that BMG gears can withstand strong torque and turn smoothly without lubricant even in environments as cold as -200 degrees Celsius (-328 degrees Fahrenheit).

ADVERTISEMENT

“Being able to operate gears at the low temperature of icy moons, like Europa, is a potential game changer for scientists,” says NASA program manager R. Peter Dillon.

“Power no longer needs to be siphoned away from the science instruments for heating gearbox lubricant, which preserves precious battery power.”

A metallic glass is created by heating a liquid metal, to make sure its atoms are bouncing all over, then cooling it very quickly, by about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit) per second. The process locks the atoms in place, preventing them from crystallizing in an orderly fashion. This random-distribution state is known as “vitreous” — the same state of matter that characterizes glass. The result is metal with some internal properties of a fluid, giving them much better flexibility and durability. The random structure also prevents most weak-spots in the metal from forming (as these usually these form around imperfections in the crystalline matrix).

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

While BMGs aren’t a new discovery, scientists have found it difficult to make hardware like robots and rovers out of it. NASA has shown that they can be used to fashion such components, however. They fashioned a part known as a strain wave gear (pictured above), which essentially keeps the artificial joints moving, from BMGs. Even better, they report that this approach is cheaper and less complicated than the conventional method.

“Mass producing strain wave gears using BMGs may have a major impact on the consumer robotics market,” says lead researcher Douglas Hofmann.

“This is especially true for humanoid robots, where gears in the joints can be very expensive but are required to prevent shaking arms. The performance at low temperatures for JPL spacecraft and rovers seems to be a happy added benefit.”

The findings “Optimizing Bulk Metallic Glasses for Robust, Highly Wear-Resistant Gears ” have been published in the journal Advanced Engineering Materials.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tags: coldFreezingMetallic GlassnasarobotsRovers
ShareTweetShare
Alexandru Micu

Alexandru Micu

Stunningly charming pun connoisseur, I have been fascinated by the world around me since I first laid eyes on it. Always curious, I'm just having a little fun with some very serious science.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.