Ultra-Strong Nanotube Composites

TheMatt writes "In a story that makes you say "Cool!", Nicholas Kotov and co-workers have created a nanotube composite material six times stronger than carbon-fiber composites. Their final product is a crosslinked material which appears to be just as strong as silicon carbide and tantalum carbide!"

Comments

Re:No big uses soon...

[Drishmung]

'strong' is a much overused word, and pretty meaningless without significant qualification. Which is stronger: Balsa wood or Teak? OK, so when was the last time you made a model plane out of teak then?

Materials have the following attributes (and others of course):

• brittle/tough (glass vs steel)
• elastic/inelastic (aka stiffness)
• isotropic/anisotrpic
• density
• tempera ture stability
• chemical stability (resistance to corrosion)
• cost of raw material
• cost of manufacture
• hardness

Now, stiffness is one of the important ones. High Young's modulus (stiffness) good, low Young's modulus bad. Stiff and light is better; stiff, light and tough really attracts attention.

For a very readable introduction to this, I recommend The New Science of Strong Materials (or why you don't fall through the floor) by J.E. Gordon, also his Structures.