Indestructible Stuff Day

 

Hello again, on yet another Tuesday this week let's look at steel, many things are compared to its strength such as Kevlar and spider silk.

Steel is a mixture of iron a natural metal and carbon. Carbon is released when things burn so when people heated rocks to get the iron out of them some carbon ended up mixed in too.

With too much or too little carbon iron can be to soft and breakable, however, over time people found the right amount of carbon gave them a very strong, tough and flexible metal that was much better to make things. Thus steel was born.

As its mostly made of iron, steel is heavy, so its not very good for stuff like armour or aircraft.

It is rigid and can withstand huge forces which it does better than almost anything else. That's why it's still used to make all kinds of things from nails, tent pegs and ice skates to bridges and skyscrapers.

We have now invented many different types os steel by adding other chemicals to the mix. Maraging steel containing nickel and titanium makes it one of the strongest. It's used in building space rockets.