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A Building Material 12 Times Stronger Than Steel

Posted by timothy on from the how-about-for-pogo-sticks dept.

nm1m writes: "For the last few months I have been following with some interest a few stories (story link may not work) in the school newspaper about a new structural technology being developed at BYU. It is called PYRAmatrix, and is 12 times stronger than steel, yet less than 10 percent the weight of steel. A 47 foot cylinder of this stuff, 16 inches in diameter and weighing just 47 pounds, can support almost 4 tons. It seems to have obvious applications in aerospace, electricity utility poles, radar and communication towers, and just about any structure that needs exceptional strength. An interesting press release with facts and figures can be found here. Photos can be found here." The link worked for me -- and reminded me of the plastic-walking scene in Sabrina .

6 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. RE: cure for erectile dysfunction? by tenman · · Score: 3, Funny

    Every Silver lining has a cloud, and I am wondering about the amount to time that this material lasts. It's fine for it to be a super light polymer, and have the stringth of Cowboy Neal, but how long will it be before it starts to lose it's stringth? How long before it would crack like Jon Katz?

    I would hate to live near a power pole made of this stuff, after it had been up for a couple of years.

  2. Oh yeah, great pictures... by Tom7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    These MS Paint jobs remind me of "all your base are belong to pyramatrix" or something...

  3. Sweet. by TweeKinDaBahx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we can build 10,000 unit subdivisions in the desert at half the cost! Won't it be grand when we're all out of water?! I CAN'T WAIT!

    (Yeah, this is a bit paranoid BTW, but I live in new mexico so give me a break. EL VADO LAKE is a mud hole and I didn't catch any fish this weekend so I'm bitter.)

    --
    Linux is dead.
    LU
  4. Re:Not as cool as the goat spider silk by MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM · · Score: 0, Funny

    We clearly see that a spider silk can easily lift a human up in the sky and around buildings, from the movie Spiderman. So your theory of linear scalability is inaccurate.

  5. Patented the triangle!!! by walt-sjc · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, our patent office is doing it's job. They have granted a patent on the triangle! This is great news. I'm going to go out and patent the square! There's money to be made... Muahahaha! All Your Square R Belong To Me!

  6. Re:Great pic by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 3, Funny
    What they don't show is whether the other end you can't see is rigidly attached to something 1/2 ;-)

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"