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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!"
Could this stuff, if produced cheaply enough in the next 20 years, be the end-all of condoms? It sounds like such a stupid thing to ask, but I've known more than one family that became one because latex just doesn't hold up sometimes.
Perhaps weird uses like this could really help out in the end?
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the tethers.com guys have a subscription to Nature, but if they don't maybe they could use a short email... hmmm.
Propellantless space transport. Tasty goodness.
The effect only works with single walled carbon nanotubes, and even then only when in air. The effect actually happens because the tubes are very black and very porus, absorbing a large amount of light and rapidly converting it to a violent expansion of the surrounding Oxygen in the air igniting the nanotube. This will never occur if the tubes are incorporated into an epoxy string.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I agree with the spirit of your post, however one should note that, in the article, they are only comparing tensile strengths. Steel also has a very high compressive strength which makes it useful for all kinds of structural members. It's unclear whether the nanotubes would be useful for situations where they're being pushed, bent or subjected to shear stress. Perhaps somebody else can shed some light on this.
Agreed. What a lot of the general interest publications is the difference between defect-free theroetical strength and real-world strength. Metals are also very strong if defect-free, but you can't produce them in any sort of bulk.
This seems like a really clever approadh; all the press has focused on the "unobtanium" properties of the perfect, 100% continuous nanotube fiber. This really "feels"like a real world solution-- 60% nanotube, 100-meter lengths. This is the biggest science story of the year.
**Please excuse my use of "quotes."
Again though, it's only good in tension. You do open up more applications though: a high-strength hammock, or a slash-resistant fabric, a drum-head, a high-strength net. Using the same techniques they use for kevlar, bullet-resistant materials.
I'm also envisioning it's use in large pnumatic dome structures, where the strength of the structure IS in the tension of the walls.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
"Requires" is a slippery word, because to some extent you can make up for a weaker material by tapering the cable so it's thicker in the middle where it's holding the "weight" of both ends, and thinner at the ends so there's less load.
The amount of taper gets absurd in no time for materials weaker than unobtainium. High Lift Systems quotes a taper ratio of 1.7E33 for steel and 2.6E8 for Kevlar, and that's apparently for a cable stressed to the breaking point.
10 or 20 times stronger than steel would be usable, in other words.
That's a very interesting thought, and worth expanding upon for anyone not familiar with the state of the art, or possibly unfamiliar with cars in general.
At first I was tempted to dismiss your statement because carbon fiber cloth is easy to get, is relatively cheap (it's the autoclave that makes it so expensive to use/make), is well understood, and works very well -- and has been in widespread use for exotic automotive applications for about a decade. A friend of mine recently had a minor crash in his F50, as an example, and the repairs involved $150,000 worth of new carbon fiber -- 8 layers for most body panels, with each layer being completely different than the others, with each layer put there for specific reasons. Some are straight weaves, some are cross-weaves, and some are honeycombs -- all in a car that is 8 years old. So carbon fiber in general is definitely well-understood.
However, in thinking about the properties of this specific application, I realized you might be on to something. Where this new strand-format CF might be interesting is places where steel tension cables are used today -- shifter cables, parking brake cables, wing adjustments, support structures, and so on. After all, in certain circles, any weight reduction is worth the money. I would expect to see it first in Formula-1 -- assuming the newly tech-averse rule-making idiots at the FIA don't make carbon fiber illegal, too.
Definitely an interesting thought.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Everyone concentrates on how strong these fibers are. I'm wondering just how thin they are -- there's an old SF idea of a "monomolecular fiber" that can be used to cut through just about everything because it's VERY strong and VERY thin.
The idea even shows up in "The Santa Clause" when the elves free Santa (Tim Allen) by using tinsel to cut the hinges on a jail cell.