PSI - Issue 26

Jesús Toribio et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 26 (2020) 348–353 Toribio / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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4. In the conceptual frame of Fray Luis de León and Miguel de Cervantes The composite lamellar microstructure of pearlite (consisting of alternate ferrite/cementite lamellae) recalls the conceptual frame of Fray Luis de León, major Spanish poet and Professor at the University of Salamanc a, cf. Fig. 5, with the well known verse in the “ Oda a Salinas” : “ y entrambas a p orfía mezclan una dulcísima armonía ”, indicating that the fight (the mixture) between voices (the counterpoint) generates the sweetest harmony, in the same manner as the mixture between ferrite and cementite lamellae produces a very noble material (pearlite steel), that can be considered, thus, a Fray Luis de León (FLL) based material .

Fig. 5. Statue of Fray Luis de León in Salamanca.

The afore said lamellar microstructure also recalls the master work by the writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: “Don Quij ote de la Mancha ”, whose cover page is reproduced in Fig. 6 (“Don Quixote de la Mancha” ) in old Spanish, later evolved to modern Spanish, a developed and important language spoken nowadays by almost 550 million of people in the world. Fig. 6 also shows the Monument devoted to Miguel de Cervantes in the Plaza de España of Madrid, including not only the statue of the writer, but also of their creatures Don Quijote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza , who could metaphorically represent the two components of pearlitic steel, ferrite and cementite, Don Quijote being the harder (and more brittle) cementite and Sancho being the softer (and more ductile) ferrite, so that pearlitic steel can also be considered a Miguel de Cervantes (MC) based material .

Fig. 6. Cover page of “Don Quijote de la Mancha” by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (left) and view of Don Quijote and Sancho .