How Was NASA Involved In The Use Of Potassium Titanate?
Whilst all titanates are widely used in one field or another, one of the most critical when it comes to protecting people’s lives on a daily basis is perhaps potassium titanate.
Due to its extremely high melting point, potassium titanate has become a widely used additive in a variety of situations where friction at high heat levels is essential, and a 1976 technical report published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States may have contributed to this.
In the mid-1970s, a huge raft of safety regulations were enacted which greatly affected the US car industry, largely spearheaded by the 1965 Ralph Nader book Unsafe at Any Speed as well as an oil crisis that meant the US car industry could no longer sell the inefficient muscle cars characteristic of the industry.
The quickest solution to reach these stringent efficiency and clean air targets was to reduce power and add a much larger protruding bumper to increase safety in the easiest way possible. It was the definition of the path of least resistance, but it was also far from a sustainable option.
There needed to be more effective and sustainable safety solutions that actually helped to solve the problems noted in Unsafe at Any Speed and increasingly fixed in other countries.
The long bumpers were replaced by the now-industry standard deformable bumper and crumple zone, more efficient diesel engines were made to increase fuel economy and eventually reduce emissions through fuel injection and better-designed carburettors, and there were improvements to both handling and braking.
The latter, in particular, was aided by a move away from traditional drum brakes to brake disks, which used ceramic brake pads made with potassium titanate as an additive.
The advantage of this is that they lasted longer and were more effective at high temperatures, something confirmed in a report sponsored by NASA, reducing the problem of brake fade and dramatically improving safety as a result.
