Every single day, humans utilize objects that contain metal in them. From the joints that make a phone function to cars that drive through bridges that are suspended off of metallic pipes and tubes, it would make sense that metal is just about ingrained into everyday life.
Just as this is completely undeniable, so too is the logic of deterioration, or wear and tear after usage. As we use our phones, it slows down and eventually shuts itself off permanently. As we drive our cars, they eventually break down, only to never be salvaged again. As we walk on bridges, each step causes the metallic tubes to bear even more weight upon their shoulders, struggling to hold on and eventually collapsing.
All of these issues cause an eventual loss of life within these objects, resulting in billions of dollars and millions of hours being spent to replace them. This was seen as an unfortunate but necessary sacrifice: we gain the ability to use these things, so it’s only fair that eventually, we lose (and need to replace) them.
But what if wear-and-tear would cease to exist? What if this fundamental law of nature that humans have accepted as common sense was broken? That may just be possible.
July of 2023 brought more than just sunny weather and humidity (at least in New York): it also brought the impossibility of self-healing metal to life. Although you might imagine this like T-1000 in Terminator Two: Judgement Day, in which the robot repaired itself no matter what it was hit with, you’d be a little off. In reality, this healing happens in a realm the human eye could hardly even fathom: the nanoscopic level. That’s not to say that you can’t see the repair eventually, but it’s not as prominently quick as you may initially believe so.
Onto the process that was used. This method (known as cold welding), was ironic by nature, and yet successful by design. The metal had to have the ends of its tiny metallic pieces pulled rapidly (approximately 200 times per second). This resulted in cracks forming and expanding, but around 40 minutes into the utilization of this process, the metal began to fuse back together.
Although this may seem insignificant at first (after all, it’s just recombining some metal), it does call into question the possibilities. If harnessed and mastered to the point where it was automated, it would enable anything, from bridges to cars to cell phones to microchips and everything in between to repair itself.
This not only reduces the cost and time of fixing it manually but would also usher in a new era of engineering: with less to fix, there’d be more opportunity to create. If we can break the laws of nature and make inanimate objects heal themselves, what else can we do?
- https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.145501
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06223-0
- https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/healing_metals/
