Bill,As you probably gathered from the web site, cryogenics is just the manipulation with the crystalline structure of a metal using heat and removing it. The trick is the speed at which the metal is heated and cooled and the precise temperatures achieved. As they say, if you get metal very hot so that the crystalline structure gets very loose and then rapidly cool it thereby freezing the structure of the atoms, it, in essence, prestresses the metal and makes it very hard, BUT it also can make it very brittle (spring steel is a good example.) Cryogenics was used heavily in trying to get cross drilled rotors to not break. While some success was seen, it obviously wasn't enough as most serious racers don't use drilled rotors any more. Throw in some nitrogen atoms to fill in the spaces of the crystalline structure and you get VERY hard bearing surfaces(nitriting.) Again, the trick is getting the nitrogen atoms deep enough to give you a very tough surface without getting it too deep which can make a crank, for instance, snap from being too brittle. Other elements besides nitrogen have been tried, but it is the most well known. Carbon used in the making of steel from iron is another example of playing with the crystalline structure chemically vs cryogenics which focuses on the techniques to apply and remove heat in a highly controlled manner to modify the metal crystals.
In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing and has equipment that can precisely control temperatures and the rate of change of those temperatures, metals can be given very desirable characteristics. Otherwise, the metal can be made totally useless as machine parts and downright dangerous as well. The exact temperatures and rates of change of the temperatures to achieve a desired outcome is highly dependent on the exact nature of the metal that is being modified as you would, no doubt, guess. So the person doing or defining the process has to be a very knowledgeable materials engineer and/or metallurgist. Short of taking samples of their handiwork to a lab with very good equipment to test the results of the processes they use, their track record is about the only way a layman can determine where they stand on the continuum of idiot to genius. If they are not doing it right, people are going to experience no improvement, at best, or a lot of failures, at worst.
I only scanned a small bit of their website; do they cite any metallurgists who have reviewed their processes, test data and finished work and then blessed them as good science? This, coupled with a very close scrutiny of the quoted metallurgist's background, papers and own work is another way one might evaluate the efficacy of this shop's work.
Regards,
Lynn
Edited for numerous spelling mistakes /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
