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: cure for erectile dysfunction?

[tenman]

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.

Material and structure

[heikkile]

To my untrained eye it seems like they have created a lattice pattern in some sort of polymer. Then they compare its behaviour to steel tubes. At least here in Denmark, most tall poles are already lattice structures, usually of steel. I wonder if this miracle material would perform well in a traditionally shaped lattice or if their new miraculous lattice would work even better with conventional steel?

press release?

[b_pretender]

The linked story seems more like a press release rather than a study of the material.

It leaves out important facts, such as...
...strength is not the only important material property. The images only show this strength in compression.

Is this material resiliant? Strong in tension or compression? Does it shear easily?

ALL of these properties matter if you are going to use it. Usually, the Aeromet steels, super carbon composites and other superstrong materials suffer from poor non-strength properties, rendering them useless in most situations.

Imagine your super material 2 lb bike frame that chips away because it is so brittle that rocks chip off peices, or is too rigid because the material has no elastic modulos.

Oh yeah, great pictures...

[Tom7]

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

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.

Sweet.

[TweeKinDaBahx]

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.)

Patented the triangle!!!

[walt-sjc]

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!

eh?

[v4mpyr]

Interesting enough, however I don't see this being a widespread replacement for steel unless it can be easily cut, rolled, bolted, welded and whatnot. I used to work for a company that developed structural steel detailing and fabrication software and can say from experience that making a connection between two pieces of steel is not exactly a trivial task. This structure just doesn't look like it would easily lend itself to building anything of significance other than poles.

This is not even slightly new or revolutionary

[p4k]

Will everyone saying how cool this is *please* read the article properly, not just look at the pictures.

They are *not* claiming to have a new material, their "product" is simply a triangulated braced beam made of carbon or glass fibre. Woohoo, a well designed braced beam made of carbon fibre is lighter than a solid block of steel, well that's a major advance for engineering. NOT. The only slightly unusual feature is that the bracing extends beyond the longitudinal members, but if that significantly improved strength/weight ratio, everyone would be doing it already. In fact, some quick back-of-the-envelope work suggests that its a fair bit worse.

Structures made of carbon/glass composites are way to expensive to make to be any use in buildings (production is very labour-intensive), and I see nothing on their website to suggest they have successfully addressed this.

My guess is their business plan depends on either getting bought by someone clueless, or abusing the patent system to get royalties from general engineering companies. On that subject, I would really like to know what exactly they think is worthy of a patent? The angle of the bracing?

Re:Great pic

[WolfWithoutAClause]

What they don't show is whether the other end you can't see is rigidly attached to something 1/2 ;-)

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.

Not What it's cracked up to be.

[katarn]

Okay, to summarize:

1. There is nothing new about Carbon Fiber. The supposedly 'original' thing here is NOT the material, it's the structural design.
2. People have been using triangles in structural designs for over 100 years. This looks like a cool demonstration of what some basic engineering principles can do with modern materials, but nothing truly new or patentable. This may make an interesting collage course, but the rest of the hype seems to be just B.S.
3. Yes, some of the pictures are poorly faked, but they are at least labeled as such.
4. Since this is nothing new, these material/ structure will have all the problems inherent with any carbon fiber structure. They will be prone to invisible stress fractures, breaking before bending, and be $$. Don't get me wrong, carbon fiber is great for some application. But it's generally best for applications where constant inspection and knowledgeable care can be continually provided. High performance hang gliders are made from carbon fiber. Personally my hang glider is good old aluminum. Much less $$$ and more forgiving of stupidity for us beginners. And a telephone pole, a power pole, or a street sign does not receive anywhere near the maintenance, inspection, and care as even a beginner's hang glider.
5. If you want to see something truly NEW done with carbon fiber, check this out. I must admit *I* would have never thought to make this item out of carbon fiber. And, incidently, I think THIS is where these folks should put their patents.