“Combining the Strength of Metals and Processability of Plastics: Thermoplastic Forming of Bulk Metallic Glasses

Many materials that are developed in the laboratory never succeed commercially. Wide spread usage of (structural) materials require a favorable combination of properties, costs, and processability. Generally, cost has no correlation to properties or processability. However, properties and processability are correlated; typically a material possess either favorable properties or processability. Within this presentation I show that when thermoplastically forming (TPF) bulk metallic glasses (BMGs), these typically mutually exclusive attributes can be combined. Length scales ranging from several nanometers to meters can be formed with a similar ease than the processing of thermoplastics and up to five orders of magnitude in length scale can be combined in one forming process. If less expensive BMGs will be developed, one can expect an impact on society similar in magnitude to the development of thermoplastics in the 20th century.