Scientific Properties of Durasteel

I guess he wants to know the "scientific properties of Durasteel" i.e. what metal alloy it is composed of, how it is prepared, how it is used in today's construction and military fields perhaps...
 
Originally posted by Bob McDob
Anyone?
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You should probably ask a real question. But all you need to know is that it's 1/20th as strong as an equal amount of Tungsten.
 
Durasteel is pretty much a completely fictitious substance created in Wing Commander and similar fictional properties. It probably has very little to do with the real thing. As for its properties, who knows. It more than likely is far stronger than any material that we currently possess. It is probably some kind of artificially created alloy. Of course Wing ships do no use durasteel anymore. The ships literal armor and hull probably uses some very lightweight composite alloy that has incredible strength. This would explain the low masses of all the ships.
 
If you want to believe that their form of Tungsten is exactly the same as it is today, or that it is used in its raw form, then there is no problem. But there is no reason why this metal could not have been modified in some way, especially considering the fact that this is in the distant future. Like durasteel, the tungsten is probably not in the same form that is reconizabe today. My guess is that Tungsten is the element that they used because of its high melting point. From there, the engineers probably did lots of modifications.

If we used literal durasteel and tungsten, they cannot really be compared to each other in equivalent strenghts. Thus by the very way that the armors are compared, we know that this cannot be just ordinary tungsten or durasteel. Anyways, we must not equate strength with melting point.

Physically the ships would, out of *neccessity*, be made out of far stronger material. Accelarating at hundreds of klicks per second puts quite a bit of strain on any craft. And besides, if one actually belives that this is the exact same form of tungsten used today, than there version of durasteel must be some pretty weak stuff. Due to the low masses and great strength of the ships in the universe we know that they do have some pretty advanced materials. As Wc3 stated, They have an entire science whose focus is that of advanced materials. A science that rivals the pace of todays top starfighters. So ... err ... it would really be starnge that they are using a metal exactly the same way that it was used six-hundred years prior.
 
Well... an alloy named Durasteel does exist -- but it's more recent than Wing Commander. Durasteel in the sense of WC is a generic sci fi metal that has no specific properties. :)
 
Re: Re: Scientific Properties of Durasteel

Originally posted by Bandit LOAF


You should probably ask a real question. But all you need to know is that it's 1/20th as strong as an equal amount of Tungsten.
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1/20 the strenght of Tungsten??? Well that is a wierd answer. Tensile Strenght, Hardness, Melting Point.


Any of the above at 1/20 the strenght would make Durasteel considerably worse as a material then Iron let alone steel
 
Originally posted by Bhaktadil
if one actually belives that this is the exact same form of tungsten used today, than there version of durasteel must be some pretty weak stuff.
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I see your point and I know what you mean to say but...

Tungsten, Like you said, is and element !! You cannot have different versions of tungsten. You can have Tungsten Alloys, which is the most probable solution to WC armor. Note that it never says the armor plating is 100 percent Tungsten. If someone modifies Tungsten on a quantum level, the resulting metal is no longer Tungsten! A tungsten atom can be modified in the sense that it contains less electrons in its outer orbits in ionic form, thus allowing it to react or combine with other element whith which it might not naturally. But they are still tungsten atoms, thus they have the same number of protons in their nucleuses.
 
Bingo. Thats what I meant to say by modify. Since if it was pure tungsten, it would have some very specific properties that would make it pretty weak. A melting point in the 3000 range is going to melt fast. The armor is certainly some kind of alloy. That is why the fact that it is twenty times the strenght of durasteel means nothing since we do not know what the armor actually is. This is "tungsten armor" that is why they can be compared to durasteel. It definitely is not just tungsten, however.
 
Originally posted by Corsair(pilot)
They really should have thought of these things in advance when making the games.... :D
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They did -- that's why they used fictional Durasteel instead of a real metal that could be compared to things.
 
Durasteel does exist in a way.. I think it's an old British company. I'm not sure if it's even still around. There's a really heavy blast-proof door here at work that is marked Durasteel. It's dated something like 1977.
 
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