The article discusses a study on how zirconium metal deforms under extreme conditions, such as high pressure. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory discovered that zirconium undergoes complex deformation, including atomic disorder and multiple crystal phase transitions, phenomena previously unseen in elemental metals. These findings were supported by molecular dynamics simulations using machine learning. The research has important implications for materials used in extreme environments, like nuclear reactors, and could lead to better predictive models for material performance under stress.
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