I’ve long been fascinated by the process of making steel and the huge role it played in the economic history of the world, when inventions like the Bessemer process made it economical to produce steel on a large scale. A lot or research has been done on the internal structure that makes steel both strong and flexible, and the experts thought they had a pretty good handle on steel’s properties.
So this story was particularly interesting. Here’s a guy in Detroit who has his own small company and is not a big researcher by any means, who has found a way to make steel that is 7 percent stronger and retains its strength in thinner sheets.
Here is what a researcher at Ohio State University said:
“Steel is what we would call a ‘mature technology.’ We’d like to think we know most everything about it. If someone invented a way to strengthen the strongest steels even a few percent, that would be a big deal. But 7 percent? That’s huge.”