Tuesday, December 23, 2008
SMU’s vacuum-grown titanium alloy Christmas tree is “perfect”
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courtesy SMU
Science-minded whiz kids at Southern Methodist University's Lyle School of Engineering have gone all holiday-themed on us and manufactured a tiny Christmas tree worthy of Charlie Brown.
At five inches wide by five inches tall, the "tree" was grown in a vacuum chamber and consists of a three-dimensional latticeword structure of titanium-alloy powder, shaped by controlled melting through the agency of an electron beam.
There are, as one might expect, practical applications for the technology beyond making incredibly expensive (and entirely impractical) Christmas trees, and the fact that the Baylor College of Dentistry is collaborating with the Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing (RCAM) might clue you in to one of them.
Using the same techniques used to construct the tree, RCAM engineers are working on dental implants designed as a unitary construct (as opposed to the usual three-component layout), resulting in an implant less likely to break.
Meanwhile, the "tree" looks great on the cover of a Christmas card such as the one depicted, including a photograph taken by SMU photographer Hillsman S. Jackson using a high-powered laser as a stand-in for a treetop star.
Perhaps they could string it with dental floss?
posted by JM
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