Texas Scientists Spin Carbon Nanotube Fiber

RedCard writes "According to this article at news24.com, University of Texas scientists have managed to spin a fiber made of 60% carbon nanotubes that is five times stronger than steel and is "tougher than any natural or synthetic fibre described so far" - including spider silk! Previous attempts at making fibers like this have only produced relatively short lengths, but these guys have produced lengths of 100 metres at the rate of 70cm per minute!"

Comments

Incredible!

[NetRanger]

Just imagine the uses for such a cloth made of this material... not to mention the obvious thing that comes to mind, "Hello Space Elevator!"

This could be the first truly fantastic scientific breakthrough of the 21st century. Now all we need is a room-temperature superconductor, and we're all set.

Construction materials

[Lord Prox]

I'll bet this stuff would be bitchen for a fiberglass type substance. I had read somewhere that they have already tried it but ran into problems with "clumping" of the microscopic nanotubes. But now they are macroscopic, so problem solved. And at the rate they are creating the macroscopic fiber it would seem that they could quickly replace existing carbon/graphite composite materials.

Damn, this is going to really change the aircraft industry. Not to mention golf and tennis.

Bullet proof?

[DigiShaman]

I wonder if this stuff could be use to make ultra-light bullet proof vests. Also, I'm sure exotic car manufactures such as Farrari would be interested in the stuff.

Re:Bullet proof?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Woven, like a Kevlar vest, it might work quite well. Body armor has some issues other than strength, though. I read an article about building armor out of spider silk. It's got the strength, but it's also so flexible that a bullet would stretch the vest into your body and out your back before the vest bounced it backward.

Re:Space Elevator in our life time?

[dpbsmith]

Yes, but would you want to ride a space elevator with a safety factor of only 1.00000? So there's probably a factor of ten left to go. I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime.

In my lifetime, I'd settle for seeing humans get back to the moon. I'd like Mars, but I'll settle for the moon. Of all the things science-fiction writers predicted, reaching the moon and then abandoning lunar flights and letting grass grow on the launching pads was not one of them.

Space Elevator

[hackus]

I think, several challenges to just materials science has to be overcome.

For example, our current science in engineering, relies on models and previous engineering attempts, to build new structures.

If you want to build a structure, say taller than the sears towers for example, you can do so, by using the Sears Towers as a reference, then building perhaps 10-15% taller.

Historically, we buld a large number of structures, not just buildings, a little bigger at a time. We build planes, a little faster at a time.

That is how our engineering science works. Even when we sent men to the moon, as colossal a task as that was, we took very small steps at a time, and it took decades.

Building something like a Space elevator, in the timeframe (10-20 years) I think is ridiculous given our current engineering science and application of Mathematics/Statics etc.

Just because you have a material than can go hundreds of miles straight up doesn't mean your structure will.

Whole new branches of engineering will have to be invented, as well as new mathematics to make this structure work.

Personally I think the work Stephen Wolfram has done so far in FSM's (Finite State Machines), may offer a clue as to how we can take much bigger steps in the sciences, with much more predictability, in our models, and methods of construction, to make a space Elevator possible.

At the very least his work sheds light on the principles of complexity, and why we take baby steps in everything we do.

Specifically, how can we design systems, when we have no working model, and to build such a model requires an order of magnitude in scale our engineering science, historically, has never had to deal with.

I think, after a century or more of using this material in terrestrial structures, to understand how it works better, we can start thinking about such an elevator system.

But I think it is a safe bet you are not going to live to see one anytime soon, much to the contrary some of these guys at the Space Elevator web site will have you believe.

-Hack