Stressed out

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UK-US research into technique to force metal around corners and stretch it to shape could mean safer, lower cost manufacture of tiny mechanical devices. Stuart Nathan reports.

Forcing metal round corners could be a vital step in the manufacture of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), according to researchers in the

and US.

Engineers at the Universities of

and

believe that a technique called equal channel angular processing (ECAP) could give metals and alloys properties that make them especially suitable for use in tiny mechanical devices.

A billet of metal is pushed into a vertical channel which starts off straight but then turns through an angle of up to 90

. The billet is placed under pressure to force it through the angle, which causes stresses inside the metal. This action is repeated through several cycles, each one causing new strain.

By the end of the process, explained

's Marco Starink, the strains will have changed the microstructure of the metal. 'The key issue here is that ECAP has the ability to change the grain structure,' he said, 'and we use it to create grain sizes in the sub-micrometre range. We are way above nanometre-scale, but it's certainly within the realms of nanotechnology.'

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