A way of predicting the remaining lifetime of stressed steel has been demonstrated for the first time by physicists in Japan. Hirotsugu Ogi and colleagues of Osaka University have shown that structural faults in carbon steel make it absorb sound very effectively at a certain point in its life. The non-contact technique is based on the effect of this absorption on a magnetic field, and could be used to monitor the condition of axles in trains and motor vehicles (H Ogi et al 2002 J. Appl. Phys. 91 1849).
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