Technical ceramics are utilized in a variety of products and also for coatings of components that have to be highly wear- or temperature-resistant. They are also used in non-conductive or ...

Superhard materials are highly prized, ironically enough, for their flexibility. Not in terms of bending, but rather in terms of what they can be used to build. Creating scratch-resistant coatings, ...

Plastic materials have been utilized in diverse products in a broad range of fields in recent years. Some of these include not only automotive parts such as bumpers, but also medical materials, daily ...

Boron carbide is a material that combines hardness, lightness, and resistance to high temperatures, but it poorly withstands shocks. Scientists at the CNRS have developed a new method for synthesizing ...

Skoltech researchers have presented a new simple physical model for predicting the hardness of materials based on information about the shear modulus and equations of state of crystal structures. The ...

When it comes to measuring the "hardness" of a material, most tests are distinctly low-tech and basically involve pressing a diamond tip into the surface and measuring the size of the dent produced.