Materials – Steel like none other

January 5, 2016 – Steel unlike any forged in the last 2,000 years will be in the spotlight at the TMS 2016 Annual Meeting & Exhibition, Feb. 14-18 in Nashville. Lynn Boatner of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will present a paper that describes the “intrinsically decorative steel” manufactured with no forging operations whatsoever. “The process for forming this material is unlike that of any of the fabrication methods utilized in making the original Damascus steels or the more recent pattern-welded steels,” Boatner said. The material begins as melt-grown single crystals of an iron-nickel-chromium alloy that, following additional non-mechanical processing steps, emerges as steel that earned second place honors at the 2015 International Metallographic Contest and Exhibit in Portland, Oregon. It has applications spanning cutlery, automotive, jewelry and a variety of other uses.