I was really wondering this model and especially the Boron Carbide material. The model is limited to 25 pieces and if you find a possiblity you should really see this watch in person.
Here is my review with live photos.
INGENIEUR AUTOMATIC EDITION “AMG GT”
The watch looks classy, well done!
Boron carbide is quite an interesting material, and probably better than the ceramic that is used more often. Boron carbide is both light, hard and tough: the latter is important if you have the mishap of dropping the watch on a tile floor. The movement may be damaged then, but the case will not break, it is not as brittle as ceramic. As boron carbide is used in tank armour and bulletproof vests it must be more than strong enough and also keep its looks for quite a while.
I wonder how difficult boron carbide is to handle, and whether it is an expensive product because of it. For a tough and light sports watch it seems ideal, as long as you like black: I guess it cannot be manipulated easily to take any colour you like, although that would add massively to the fun: a red or yellow watch!
Kind regards,
Paul
Thanks for the input Paul. Very usefull information.
While, Boron Carbide is an interesting ceramic material to be used in watches and will resist scratches better than conventional ceramics, it has its own subsequent weaknesses of lower fracture toughness. I do not think Boron Carbide is necessarily better than other ceramics such as Zirconia, currently used to make the pilots watch cases. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
There is usually an inverse relationship between how hard a material is and its strength. Ceramics are extremely hard, but are far less strong compared to metals such as steel or titanium. If we look at this link...
www.ceratec.nl/materiaalschema-en.html#materiaalschemaen
...we can see that while the hardness of Boron Carbide (B4C) is 3800 Vickers, its strength in terms of fracture toughness is 3 MPa/m.squared. It also has a flexural strength of 400 GPa. Compare this to Yttria stabilized Zirconia (TZP), a popular ceramic material used in the IWC pilot's line. While this Zirconia has a hardness of 1200 Vickers (a third of Boron Carbide), it has a fracture toughness of 10 MPa/m.squared (3 time that of Boron Carbide) and a flexural strength of 1000 GPa (two and half times of Boron Carbide)
So, while Boron Carbide gains on hardness compared to Zirconia, it loses out on fracture toughness and flexural strength. I do not think a Boron Carbide watch case will survive a fall on a concrete floor, as Zirconia with a higher fracture toughness would not.
Thanks a lot, Sumit! I wonder how a relatively brittle material could be used as a tank armour, but then, if a tank is preserved while the armour is ruined, that would be a wonderful result for the tank.
I have several sporty watches with a titanium case. To me that could be the ideal material if you want it to absorb abuse without noticeable damage. It is rather forgiving to scratches. If the colour of titanium is a bit gloomy, it is far more cheerful than the colour of the ceramics discussed here. So the balance of weight, hardness, toughness and looks would be in favour of titanium: right!
Kind regards,
Paul
You are right - If the tank armour were to consist of a single piece of boron carbide, it would simply shatter when targeted by a projectile. Instead the way this armour is usually designed is by placing boron carbide ceramic tiles interspersed within a metal matrix and backed by layers of some heat resistant elastic material, thus creating an elastic ceramic-metal composite with the benefits of both materials - ceramic for hardness to deflect the energy of a shaped charge and the metallic matrix together with the elastic backing to maintain structural integrity.
Because the ceramic is not in one piece, the decreased surface area actually increases its toughness - For example, if you were to take a piece of chalk and keep breaking it you would reach a point when you would have to exert tremendous force to break it any further. When a projectile hits this composite, some of the ceramic disks actually shatter and abrade the projectile. The shaped charge designed to penetrate the skin of the tank finds a much broader area of impact, thus dissipating the energy. All this sacrifices some of the ceramic discs, but there are other undamaged discs keeping the integrity of the armour intact as long as a new projectile does not hit the same point of impact.
While pure titanium is quite soft (Grades I to IV), Grade V titanium is pretty much as you said, an all rounder when it comes to a metallic watch case - with the strength of high tensile steel at a fraction of the weight, together with almost twice the scratch resistance at around 300+ Vickers hardness, anti-magnetic as well. Also, Grade V Ti can be polished and does not have too pronounced a shade of grey. Few grades of steels (and surface treatments), can outdo this, though they would be heavier than Ti.
The true strength of ceramic lies in its enduring beauty - Decades later the Ingenieur Automatic AMG GT will still look as sharp as the day it was purchased (save a few strap changes). In ceramic materials for a watch case, IMHO Zirconia takes the crown - color, fracture toughness, hardness all well balanced.
Once Again,
I would like to add that you certainly learn something new everyday on this Forum!!
The depth of knowledge on a variety of subjects here is just staggering!
Thank You Gentlemen for making it such an interesting place....
Thank you Sumit, that is great information!
cool watch, great info all!
Thanks,
B.
Fascinating post Sumit, thank you for the info.
Sometimes I wish there were a "like" button on here.