New Supermaterial: As Strong As Steel And As Light As Styrofoam

Comments

• dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I take umbrage at all these popsci articles that keep breathlessly insisting that the new wondermaterial is as “strong” as steel without meaningfully specifying how. Because inevitably it only matches just one mechanical property of steel, if it even manages that (so also look out for weasel words like "nearly as strong as steel).

  As strong in terms of tensile strength? Shear strength? Hardness? Elastic modulus? Abrasion resistance?

  In this case it’s compressive strength. No other properties are mentioned except weight. That’s not terribly impressive from a mechanical engineering standpoint. From a chemistry standpoint, sure. But steel – even then, there are oodles of potential steel alloys – has a rough compressive strength ranging from 500-ish to a maximum of about 1500 MPa. Big whoop. Most ceramics meet or handily exceed that, and quite a lot of them are significantly lighter than steel. So why don’t we build airplanes out of those? Because their other properties are completely unsuitable for the task, especially for large pieces. In particular they’re much too brittle.

  You want to know what else has a compressive (and tensile!) strength of around 500 MPa? Aluminum. Guess what we build airplanes out of.

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  • MOARbid1@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    This is a great comment, and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks!

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• sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  TLDR; its carbon based and same like other carbon based super materials its difficult to produce on large scale. at least for now

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  • scintilla@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Carbon really is the closest thing to magic sci fi materials. It’s just so cool how strong it is and how versatile it could be. And to top it off it’s fucking everywhere so if we can figure out how to make things like this more effectively it wouldn’t even be that expensive.

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    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Graphene is the most amazing material, it can do anything you can imagine - except leave the lab.

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  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    So, no space elevator in the next few months?

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    • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Not for us plebians

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    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      the real problem is we keep trying from the ground up

      it’s going to win when we can lower it

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• can@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Nice, can’t wait to feel this coursing through my blood and falling in the rain.

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  • InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    This is probably our generation’s asbestos.

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    • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Isn’t that plastic already?

      Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains

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• NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Dies it scale for manufacturing? That’s usually where these things fail.

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• Cody@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Thumbnail looks like Chex cereal.

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  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I’m going to eat carbon!

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