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The World's Strongest Glue

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-that's-sticky dept.

missing_myself writes "Yahoo news reports the world's strongest glue is made by bacteria. "The adhesive can withstand an enormous amount of stress, equal to the force felt by a quarter with more than three cars piled on top of it." Time to get rid of the duct tape? "

5 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing new unit by qbwiz · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd never heard of this new "cars/quarter" unit (invented by the same guy who gave us the LoC unit, presumably), so I had to look it up to see that this glue can hold around 10,000 psi (70,000 kPa).

    --
    Ewige Blumenkraft.
    1. Re:Amazing new unit by Manchot · · Score: 4, Informative

      Are you kidding me? Cars/quarter is definitely an SI unit, just like the area of a football field and the thickness of a human hair.

  2. Teflon too by kbob88 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apparently something similar happened with Teflon too. The engineers at Dupont spent a very long time trying to get it to adhere to various surfaces. Teflon is so non-sticky that it took them years to get it to stick to metal pots and pans. Finally they came up with techniques of multiple layering and various methods to bake it on. More at http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_173.html

  3. Re:cars on a quarter? by darkitecture · · Score: 4, Informative

    Would the force change if 3 cars were piled onto a surface that was 1 square meter - no....

    Well, if there's more surface area, then there's a wider distribution of weight and the pressure per square inch would diminish.

  4. Re:Compression, tension, shear? by colinrichardday · · Score: 3, Informative

    Compression is pushing in on something, like cars on the road (the cars compress the road). Tension is pulling out on something, like hanging a weight on a string (the weight applies tension to the string). Shear involves applying a sideway force, like using shears to cut paper. The shears cut through the paper, and the cut is along the paper.

    Reinforced concrete combines the compression strength of concrete with the tensile strength of steel.