A Building Material 12 Times Stronger Than Steel

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 .

Comments

Re:Not as cool as the goat spider silk

[caca_phony]

A question about this goat spider silk - does spider silk scale linearly? What I mean is, for example, multicellular organisms don't scale linearly. A human that was six times as tall would crush it's legs to splinters if it tried to stand up, and fleas or other insects can jump or fall many hundreds of times their own height safely, unlike a human scale animal. What I wonder is if spider webs are similar - amazing properties on a spider scale, but pretty pathetic at a larger scale.

Also, watch out bringing up goats around here...

He gets it wrong from the headline on

[Lars T.]

"The revolutionary idea is not the material used to make the form, but the structural design itself."

It's a new building structure, not a new building material. It may not even be a truely new structure at that, at least similar designs have been used for qite some time.

most important info... how much does it cost?

[voisine]

There are many materials lighter and
stronger than steel. If that were the
only important criteria, all modern
structures would be made of carbon
fiber. Since structures are big, and
require lots of material, the most
important question is: how much does
it cost?

not as strong as its made out to be

[littlerubberfeet]

I rock climb. I use carabiners, specifically blackdiamond Locking D's with asymetrical gates. These are rated at 22 KiloNewtons. Some quick calculations: A newton = .2248 pounds. So: .2248* 1000(kilo)*22 newtons = 4946 pounds. Which is two tonnes approx. Ergo, 2 of my climbing 'biners can support two tonnes. Each carabiner weighs less than one half of a pound.
www.convert-me.com was my resource.
Am I not getting something here? It all seems wrong to me.