Super-Light Plastic As Strong as Steel

Roland Piquepaille writes "A new composite plastic built layer by layer has been created by engineers at the University of Michigan. This plastic is as strong as steel. It has been built the same way as mother-of-pearl, and shows similar strength. Interestingly, this 300-layer plastic has been built with 'strong' nanosheets of clay and a 'fragile' polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), commonly used in paints and glue, which acts as 'Velcro' to envelop the nanoparticles. This new plastic could soon be used to design light but strong armors for soldiers or police officers. The researchers also think this material could be used in biomedical sensors and unmanned aircraft."

Comments

I hear..

[valkabo]

I hear the wicked witch of the west is made of this stuff..

It's made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue

How quaint!

[daeley]

McCoy: You realize that by giving him the formula you're altering history.

Scotty: Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?

Re:How quaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea yea, you read the fark headline.

Re:How quaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe, yeah... Star Trek 4 - The Voyage Home

"How thick would one piece of your plexiglass need to be at sixty feet by ten feet, to withstand the pressure of 18.000 cubic feet of water?"

- Best Regards, Bo (Trux) Simmons -

- "Computer... Computer?"
Dr. McCoy hands Scotty the computer mouse.
"Hello computer", Scotty says kindly into the microphone (mouse).
-"Just use the keyboard!"

Re:How quaint!

[McFadden]

Yea yea, you read the fark headline.

Given that it was the first thought that entered my head when I read the headline (and probably that of every true geek) I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

Re:How quaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Asimov predicted this one in the original Foundation series - it was called Plasteel.

Re:How quaint!

[UncleTogie]

Given that it was the first thought that entered my head when I read the headline (and probably that of every true geek) I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

Amen. I was just about to try to tag it "transparent aluminum"...

Re:How quaint!

[arbitraryaardvark]

Amen. I was just about to try to tag it "transparent aluminum"...
Better!, it's made from opaque alcohol.

TFA: The glue-like polymer used in this experiment, which is polyvinyl alcohol, was as important as the layer-by-layer assembly process

"stronger than steel" says Roland. OK, fine, but is that per volume, per pound, per dollar's worth?
I'm assuming volume, but it didn't say.

Re:How quaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA: It's per Rhode Island.

Re:How quaint!

[operagost]

Scotty: (holding mouse in front of mouth) Helloooo computer!

Re:How quaint!

[operagost]

It is "strong as steel" so clearly it is transparisteel!

Re:How quaint!

[Anonymous Coward]

This world is more full of Trekkies, and geeks in general, than people knowing what a polymer material really is... :-)

Re:How quaint!

[mblase]

The Ringworld engineers called. They have a patent for something called "scrith" and a half-dozen of the ugliest lawyers you've ever seen.

Re:How quaint!

[PakProtector]

Dear sir,
Your libelous statements about ourselves have come to our attention. Expect letters from our Lawyers shortly.
Sincerely,
The Ringworld Engineers

Obvious use

[Anonymous Coward]

The researchers also think this material could be used in biomedical sensors and unmanned aircraft."

And swords. Don't forget swords.

Re:Obvious use

[Anonymous Coward]

naw, I'm thinking ketchup bottles.

Link with pics

[Spy der Mann]

http://www.dailytech.com/Transparent+Plastic+Polymer+is+Strong+as+Steel/article9181.htm

When i saw the title i imagined something more like bulletproof glass, but, as you can see, it's pretty thin.

Re:Link with pics

[debilo]

When i saw the title i imagined something more like bulletproof glass, but, as you can see, it's pretty thin.

Thanks for the link. I wonder if this could be used as a scratch-resistant coating for sensitive surfaces. I'm thinking of my iPod and my mobile phone. Or even the windshield, loose chippings can be so annoying.

Re:Link with pics

[kebes]

The technique they are describing is called "Electrostatic Layer-by-Layer Deposition", and the resultant materials are called polyelectrolyte multilayers. Basically you dip a substrate alternately into baths of different polymers, with each step depositing a thin layer of polymer. These materials have been studied for the last decade or so. This group is investigating layering one polyelectrolyte with strong clay platelets (rather than using two polyelectrolytes). Thus they create a "brick and mortar" assembly, where strong (nano-sized) clay platelets are glued together with flexible polymer layers.

The process is good for creating very thin layers, but as you can imagine it's very slow for making thick materials. Each deposition step only adds on the order of a nanometer of material. Hundreds of steps are needed to create films thick enough to actually pick up, bend, and perform mechanical testing.

However some researchers have already investigated switching from the laborious "sequential dipping" technique to a "roll-to-roll" technique. So, instead of dipping a glass slide (or whatever) into vats of liquid one after the other (each time adding a very thin layer), the idea would be to use roll-to-roll technology (like in printing presses) to dip huge sheets of material through various vats at high speed. It's been shown to work (with some difficulties along the way, of course)... so in principle if these materials become sought, there are ways of making them in greater quantities, and thicker than this lab demonstration suggests.

Another unique thing about this "layer-by-layer" method of creating materials is that you can inherently control the composition of the material across the thickness. So you can actually have, for instance, the material's elastic modulus (or dielectric properties, or whatever), vary though the thickness of the material. Maybe you want a sheet of "plexiglass" that is super-strong at its core, but rather soft and rubberlike in its outer layer (so it doesn't hurt when you bang your head against it? Or maybe you want a liquid-like 'healing layer' on the outside to fill in scratches?). This depth-control of the material properties could be quite interesting for many applications where you want a mix of properties.

(Disclosure: Part of my Ph.D. thesis work involved related layer-by-layer materials.)

Re:Link with pics

[foniksonik]

How about using an Inkjet method? You could get a good compromise between speed and flexible composition... or even with the roll-to-roll method they could use something like an ink plate to deposit just where they want the liquid to bind.... lots of good engineering research to be done there as well.

Re:Link with pics

[kestasjk]

The actual name for the process of depositing ink onto a charged drum is something like xeroxisition (I can't remember exactly, but I think Xerox got its name from the process and not the other way around.)

But this process deposits more than a nanometer of ink (otherwise you wouldn't be able to see it), and you need to charge the ink which might not be suitable, and even if it was workable it would only help in applying the ink in a non-uniform way across a surface, and it's hard to think how that'd be useful.

Re:Link with pics

[gladish]

I think it's all a major let down. When I first read about nanotechnology it kind of went something like this: You start with two teeny tiny robots who would go off on their own and build a third. The three then collaborate and build a fourth, and so on. Eventually you have a countless number of nano-sized robots who all then arrange themselves into whatever shape they set out to create (say a bridge) simply by holding hands. Now how did we get from that to super saran wrap?

Re:Link with pics

[MyLongNickName]

Two words: Marketing

See, you even got let down with the "Two words" part. Priceless.

Re:Link with pics

[Moodie-1]

Could you be referring to xerography? This is the process that photostat machines use and where Xerox got its name.

Re:Link with pics

[ivan256]

Since when is steel scratch resistant? Especially compared to glass....

Re:Link with pics

[alshithead]

I'm guessing the roll-to-roll technique would also allow for drying between layers if the rollers are spaced far enough apart for the necessary drying time or by adding a heating element of some kind?

Re:Link with pics

[alshithead]

Two words: Science fiction

Fixed that for you and no let down. The science fiction of today is the science of tomorrow...don't know where I heard that so sorry for citation. You just need patience.

Re:Link with pics

[Brietech]

I actually worked on developing a printer for heavy-duty rubberized coatings (weird project)... Long story short, inkjet printers use piezo-jet technology to print which has a few limitations: 1) You can't actually print anything with a viscosity higher than (roughly) water, or it will instantly clog the jets. I would imagine clay platelets, even nano-sized, would not enjoy being shoved through a piezo-jet. Also, 2) the volumes they "print" are incredibly tiny . . . like nano-liter sized. To build up thickness on an industrial scale (like say a few mils thick, minimum) takes a prohibitively long time (maybe faster than their repeated-dipping technique, but still too slow to be useful). Maybe an "inkjet-like" system (we wound up using some miniature solenoids about ~.18" diameter).

Re:Link with pics

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

They already thought of a cheap, scratch-resistant coating... Awhile back, Slashdot had an article about a thin layer of diamond coating that is cheap to apply to plastic. I'm much to lazy to search for it, but its there if you have the time to look. I just remember them talking about using it to protect hand-held devices.

Re:Link with pics

[foniksonik]

As you probably know from your project new inkjet technologies deposit multiple layers in one pass, offset... each head covers a wider portion of the printing area to do this. Picture a brick wall where you build up the staggered stacks 6 high like so:

                  _-
          _-_-
_-_-_-

This would happen for each pass of the inkjet head or using a full width inkjet it would all happen sequentially as the head moved forward across the substrate, making 'passes' by alternating which jets sprayed.

Seems to me the biggest time constraint (until they figure out a chemical method) is to array the particle layers correctly and doing it as a continuous roll across the substrate or via some sort of bath (approximately the same method) does not allow for flexible deposition patterns... multiple inkets stationed along a conveyor belt would do a great job. If they can speed up the drying process of each layer by following the head with an infrared source or similar, then each head can deposit as I've shown in my ascii diagram ;-p and given the small nature of each 'dot' of material.. it could do 1000 layers at a time instead of 5, which means a full width head arrangement would only need to do 1 million passes to get you 1 millimeter of material of whatever width you have decided on (or narrower) and as long as you need it. At 1 length wise pass every 1 second (given a shortish length, say 30 centimeters or so), that would be ~12 days to get a millimeter thickness material at whatever size you required... with any sort of deposition pattern you want.... using doping agents or not.

A factory floor of these machines (in a clean room of course) could spit out at least 1000 units every two weeks. 50,000 / year. Each unit could conceivably be a custom unit as well given a fixed selection of raw material (you wouldn't want to swap out cartridge heads all the time or risk contamination between runs).

An to address another point about the injet 'ink' needing to be low-viscosity for the piezo jets to work... I've seen articles detailing the use of injets to deposit live skin cells on to a graft substrate... and many other uses... the clay particles referred to in this article are nano sized so would probably be equivalent to the dye particles in the ink itself. I think you're remembering your rubberized coating and attributing properties to the clay it doesn't have... basically if they can use the stuff in a bath and dip the substrate in it to build up nano-meter thick layers... then it can't be too viscous or else the dipping technique wouldn't work, they'd get lumps of the stuff instead of layers.

Of course i'm sure they'll find a good method to do this... if it's worth millions or billions, people figure this stuff out.

Re:Link with pics

[MyLongNickName]

Still waiting for my flying car and plane tickets to the moon...

just curious

[User 956]

Did they invent it by talking into the mouse?

Re:just curious

[ScrewMaster]

I understand that they got hold of an old Mac (circa 1986 or so), spoke into the mouse, and hit a few keys. Immediately a rotating 3D representation of the formula appeared on the screen.

It was a lot simpler than having to actually work it out for themselves.

Re:just curious

[pushing-robot]

I understand that they got hold of an old Mac (circa 1986 or so) and Scotty, who spoke into the mouse, and hit a few keys. Immediately a rotating 3D representation of the formula appeared on the screen. It was a lot simpler than having to actually work it out for themselves.

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:just curious

[ScrewMaster]

I understand that they got hold of an old Mac (circa 1986 or so) and Scotty, who spoke into the mouse, and hit a few keys. Immediately a rotating 3D representation of the formula appeared on the screen. It was a lot simpler than having to actually work it out for themselves.

There, fixed that for ya.

Dude, I could have mentioned Scotty, but there's no point in making a Star Trek reference be too obvious. Anyone that is in to Star Trek will get it and besides, you want people to have to think a little bit. More importantly, from an entertainment perspective, there are the more literal-minded folks here on Slashdot who just don't get it, and take you seriously. They go off explaining about how Apple Macintoshes from that era didn't have voice recognition and how you wouldn't talk into the mouse anyway and besides those old Macs didn't have the processing power to render the imagery shown in the movie. That's the kind of response I was hoping for, because it lets me feel powerful and important, given my obviously superior knowledge of Trek lore.

Now the joke is ruined. Oh well.

Re:just curious

[pushing-robot]

I do hate to break it to you, but you're about the dozenth person in this thread to reference that same exact event. I think your "joke" was ruined somewhere around the second post. Add to that the fact that maybe 5% of slashdotters, tops, even need to be reminded of that famous scene, and I think that any attempt at subtlety is moot.

As for my correction, I shouldn't need to explain that Scotty is Slashdot Hero Figure #1. Any attempt to extract him from the scene is considered an unforgivable offense here; like proposing the theory of evolution in sunday school, only far worse. Forgive me if I misinterpreted the joke, but from a first reading it sounds like you're attributing the spontaneous creation of the advanced material to mere hollywood "computer magic" and not, in fact, to the Great and Powerful Scotty Casting His Divine Engineering Light upon the Mac, and Bending the Logic Within to His Will - which is, of course, the accepted interpretation. I was merely acting to correct your - unintended, I'm sure - blasphemy as quickly as possible and maintain order on the site.

If, however, your joke was meant to imply that the inventors of the material had been helped by Scotty, but were now covering that fact up, I apologize, though you would have been well served to make it a tad clearer - say, by adding "They also, in hushed tones, told me not to believe anything I might have heard about a 'fat guy with a scottish accent'. "

Cheerio, then, and good luck in your future Slashdot adventures. Only keep in mind the Ten Commandments of Proper Slashdot Behavior:

I. Thou shalt remember the Scotty your Engineer.

II. Thou shalt have no Engineer before Scotty.

III-X. Really just a bunch more about Scotty, excepting a passing bit about CowboyNeal rather near the end.

Re:just curious

[ScrewMaster]

It worked, it worked!

HEFTY Eat Your Heart Out!

[Zymergy]

"It took 300 layers of each the glue-like polymer and the clay nanosheets to create a piece of this material as thick as a piece of plastic wrap." Sounds labor inten$ive though..

Re:HEFTY Eat Your Heart Out!

[ShieldW0lf]

Doesn't sound very labour intensive to me. They made a robot arm that dips a piece of glass into a dispersion of nanosheets, then dips it into the glue, over and over again. That sounds trivially easy, like something you could do in your backyard.

I imagine you could produce some pretty interesting seamless objects with this... just smash it on the ground when you're done and shake the broken glass out.

Nanosheets don't look that terribly hard to grow, and this polymer they're talking about is apparently similar to white glue.

This looks like something fun to try out.

Re:HEFTY Eat Your Heart Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as labor intensive as you might think, if the article's description of the method they used is anywhere near accurate.

Blue sky, but think of something along the lines of a large sheet of base material being pulled over a series of alternating deposition stations, each one building up another layer, until you have the desired number of nanolayers/thickness. Strip the Super Plastic off, or perhaps leave it on as an aid to laminating thin layers of the super plastic together into the desired thickness if that's possible. It might be more expensive and time-consuming than simple metalizing of plastic film, but if the properties described are half as good in reality as they're promised to be, they'll figure some industrial manufacturing process out.

I also assume that some of the research funding being asked for is to see if they might not be able to come up with a cheap, practical method of manufacture if it turns out that the promise is real.

Re:HEFTY Eat Your Heart Out!

[kebes]

The dipping procedure is fairly easy to automate, but the technique only adds a very thin layer (think nanometers) for each dipping cycle. The usage of clay platelets in this present work does make the films thicker, but still their 300 layer film is only ~300 microns thick. So it takes awhile to build up enough layers for it to be macroscopically thick and strong. To speed it up, you can use a roll-to-roll process as long as you're trying to create large 'sheets' of material.

I imagine you could produce some pretty interesting seamless objects with this... just smash it on the ground when you're done and shake the broken glass out.

Indeed! You've hit upon one of the main "selling points" of this technique: unlike other coating techniques, it isn't limited to flat surfaces. In fact, you can even coat the insides of objects. For example you can coat the insides of thin capillaries by alternately flowing the two solutions through the capillary. Some companies were also checking whether you could prevent fouling/rusting of pipes by coating their insides with material: coating even huge lengths of pipes becomes easier when all you have to do is flow some solutions through them. (You can even 'fix' a pipe already installed by taking it offline and performing this operation every so once in awhile...)

The ability to coat strange shapes may indeed allow for some neat tricks. Also note that coating glass is easiest, but actually you can layer onto all kinds of surfaces (all that's needed is a bit of surface charge). So you can imagine a sacrificial mold (something that you can burn away at low temperature or dissolve with some other solvent) that you them multilayer to create, as you say, a seamless object of controllable properties.

This looks like something fun to try out.

It's a remarkly simple technique to use. All you need is some water-soluble polymers, a glass microscope slide, and a few beakers! Of course, unless you're really patient (or have a robot or auto-dipper) it takes awhile to get a really thick film!

(Disclosure: Part of my thesis work was on these layer-by-layer materials.)

Re:HEFTY Eat Your Heart Out!

[davidsyes]

I was just thinking about how this might be used to coat the intestines, or trachea or bowels. I wonder what kind of rejection the body might offer.

(How long before government employees spec this for Air Force One-grade toilet paper? Imagine the various ramifications...)

Plasteel

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet! Our soldiers can have REAL Storm Trooper armor now! Wait...that's a bad thing, right?

Re:Plasteel

[Original Replica]

Our soldiers can have REAL Storm Trooper armor now! Wait...that's a bad thing, right?

No, it's a really good thing. Even for the most libertarian "the revolution is coming" pessimist out there, having the Infantry in top shelf body armor is a good thing. I can only think of two scenarios where this could be viewed as a bad thing.
1. If there ever where a need for the American people to violently turn on the government.
- The Infantry would not be a major target. The political and economic elite would be.
2. American Infantry were invading your homeland.
- You might as well fall quickly to unstoppable ground troops 'cause our leaders are nuts. They will bomb the hell out of you if you don't submit.

Re:Plasteel

[geekoid]

I have never seen someone miss a joke so badly.

Re:Plasteel

[Anonymous Coward]

You're new here aren't you?

Re:Plasteel

[vought]

I prefer transparasteel.

Re:Plasteel

[Frosty Piss]

Plasteel, anyone?

Pam Anderson's tits will survive in pristine condition for a thousand years after she's gone.

Re:Plasteel

[Anonymous Coward]

No, why?

Re:Plasteel

[dyslexicbunny]

Given that you're making a KoTOR reference, I think you should be hit with a trout.

Re:Plasteel

[weicco]

KoTOR? I think it's from Dune series

.

Re:Plasteel

[dyslexicbunny]

Could be Dune too. But I never got into Dune. Perhaps I will find the time after I finish grad school.

But google the phrase 'plasteel container' and you get KoTOR. They could be tipping the hat to Dune though.

Re:Plasteel

[Ramble]

It was Star Wars/Kotor. Never read Dune.

Re:Plasteel

[AP31R0N]

The Dune books mention plasteel.

Re:Plasteel

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on whether they go with the low bidder, like the Empire did.

Almost there...

[Simply Curious]

Just a few more steps to a General Products hull...

Superman

[king-manic]

Man of heavily layered plastic?

Re:Superman

[jameskojiro]

I thought "Man of heavily layer plastic" was *DUM DUM DUM* TROJAN MAN!!!!

Re:Superman

[Surt]

I'm pretty sure all their commercials emphasize just how un-layered their plastic is. Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all ... nothing at all ... nothing at all. Oh, stupid sexy Flanders.

Re:Superman

[Tribbin]

The plastic is easily penetratable with a sharp object of the following material:

'Kryptonite' Discovered in Serbian Mine:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/24/1215200

Another common material of similar construction

[erroneus]

Not sure which restaurant makes it, but there's this ultra-cheesy lasagna... it's pretty good but by the time it's "processed" it is not only as strong as steel, but as binding as epoxy.

Re:Another common material of similar construction

[flyingfsck]

Are you thinking of Safeway's 5 cheese lasagna? I think that is what they use to repair cracks in the Hoover Dam wall...

Ka-Ching

[mastershake_phd]

Sounds expensive, very expensive. I mean its not useful unless its somewhat affordable right? Those stealth aircraft cost billions, and thats only carbon fiber.

Re:Ka-Ching

[RachelWard2005]

Actually the F1-17, Stealth, only costs a few million and those costs are not because of the airframe it is because of the computer technologies used therein. The stealth flies because of the computers in it and on the ground. Those instruments are the most expensive parts on just about any aircraft. While that did not used to be the case, it is the case, now, because of the "Glass Cockpit" make up of the commercial and military aircraft.

This product may take a while to get into the aviation industry for mere regulations from the FAA; however, if this material is still lighter than metals with the same strength and is either easy to maintain or just takes less maintenance, it may very well become the skin of the newer aircrafts being made. The drawbacks that I see to this material are not really cost or time to create (in relation to aircraft manufacturing), but are instead to do with strength against vibration, how much it expands or contracts do to heat or cold, and the strength of the material once it has been drilled into and has extensive amounts of weight baring against it.

So basically if it can be lighter than Carbon Fiber or Fiberglass and can hold up to the same standards as steel and aluminum in flight conditions, it will have plenty of funding, time, and man/robot-power to create as much as needed by the manufacturers of heavy, light, and very light aircraft.

Rachel
Student of Aviation for Avionics Technician and Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic
Redstone College of Aviation

Re:Ka-Ching

[mastershake_phd]

F-177 $122 million http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F117 B-2 $727 million to $2.2 billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit I wouldn't call that a few million. Anything made layer by layer in a clean room is very expensive, like: computer processors, LCDs, plasma screens. Of course if its better than current materials its going to see use, but it may only see use from those who can afford it like the government.

Re:Ka-Ching

[saider]

The F-117 uses the same flight computers as the FA-18. Other components were pulled from the F-16. The plane used as much proven technology as possible because they were dealing with quite a bit of new technology in the form of an unproven airframe.

Fighter planes are getting more expensive because the cost of keeping the companies running that build them. Defense is one area that has been resistant to offshoring.

Re:Ka-Ching

[RachelWard2005]

Compared to the cost of other aircraft and aircraft equipment... the F-117 is not nearly as expensive as it might seem. Think about it. A Beechcraft Duke with all Glass Cockpit is cheap at almost $500,000, and that aircraft is tiny in comparison. Check out the price tag that Lockheed Martin put on the F-22 that they are selling. Hefty to say the least, and it has been discounted for the military to buy. When most aircraft already cost in the millions and billions, yeah, I call it a few million. Rachel Student of Aviation

Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Wandering Wombat]

I know the science of materials statics and strengths, physical engineering, isn't exactly an exciting field, but might this not have applications in, say, building materials? Home-cladding? Vehicle frames? Computer cases? Ultralightweight spacecraft components? Replacements for easily-broken household items such as cups and plates?

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"?

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is probably expensive and the government is the only one who might be willing to pay for it. You could use it in something like computer cases, but are you willing to pay the extra cost to avoid lifting a few extra pounds?

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Wandering Wombat]

That's what they said about cold-rolled steel two hundred years ago. Everyone had to settle for wood and stone. Now I can buy cold-rolled steel for less than a wooden beam for the exact same application.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[TubeSteak]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"? Maybe because the military is always eager to throw piles of cash at promising technology that will improve their ability to project force & protect the forces?

A lot of (basic) research has been done on the Dept of Defense's dime.
Most of it has eventually worked its way into the larger market place...

Otherwise, you have to dig up venture capital and those guys can be real bastards when you can't commercialize the technology according to their 3 or 5 or X year plan.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[RegTooLate]

As much as I hate to admit it, military research and development drives much of what we discover these days. The government pays big $$$ for new toys.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Chris Burke]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"?

Sign of the times. As a civie, my first thought about the world beyond my own little life in any given day is of the war. And to the business interests who want to sell this stuff, they want a piece of those sweet, sweet billions the government is spending on this war.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[mrbluze]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"? Exactly! It's equally important to prevent us from killing our own troops, right? And other people's too, for that matter.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[maxwell demon]

Of course, when reading about new materials, every self-respecting geek would first think of a space elevator! :-)

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[ampathee]

Because that's where the grant money is?

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[GroeFaZ]

You should have realized by now that everything with even remote military applications has better chances of receiving research money. In the US at least.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

While I'm sure there's a certain subset of people who read this article and immediately turns to a friend and says, "Do you even BEGIN to realize the profound effect this development will have on laptop cases?!?" the idea of super-thin bullet-proof vests are probably a lot more exciting to most people.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[sholden]

Obviously you seek out the things that have the most money first...

There's also the question of what "strong" means. High tensile strength but low compressive strength does not a good support beam make.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[TheRaven64]

I admit it, I'm a geek. My first thought was to wonder if this would replace aluminium, as aluminium replaced titanium, in Apple's pro laptops. My second thought was to wonder how well it radiate heat.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm and the low price of that steel is due, in part, to processing improvements from government funded research. The government pays scientists to build bombs and the technology filters out. Private industry is mostly too brain dead to due basic research. Scientists talk about armor if the government gave them money to build armor. Now shut the fuck up.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Skrapion]

To be fair, that statement also supports the GP's point. Just like cold-rolled steel was two hundred years ago, this tech is too expensive to use in common applications, and probably will be for a long time. If they get some government funding, it will take less time.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if so many foreigners weren't trying to kill our troops...

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[DeepHurtn!]

Because the US is an aggressively militaristic and jingoistic culture that glamourizes and fetishizes the military and its weapons.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. You've never studied history, have you?

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Well, unless you build tent-style buildings like the roof at DIA.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[shmlco]

Hey, it's not like we have TV shows and in fact entire cable channels devoted to military tactics and history and weapons and ... oh.

Never mind.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe me, if the US ever becomes "aggressively militaristic", Canada and Europe will be the first to know.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Hal_Porter]

Because the US is an aggressively militaristic and jingoistic culture that glamourizes and fetishizes the military and its weapons. You say that again and I'll put a cap in the your ass.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, like the 'enemy' troops. Our glorious leaders should put some serious effort into not murdering ppl for money and calling it war. But, no doubt that's off-topic.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[jimicus]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"?

Because that's an extremely good way to get funding without having nearly as much pressure hanging over your head to deliver results immediately because some venture capitalist is getting itchy.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[The One and Only]

That's because we're one of the few cultures left that has a military. Canada and Europe only have enough of a military to hold their own until the US arrives to defend them. When the last half-century of history makes your country the primary defense force for half the world, militarism is what you get.

Re:Used in body armor? THATS your first thought?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"?

because if we didn't then that would be one less excuse for assclowns to come here and display their smug sense of self-righteousness

FTA...

[mustafap]

"Michigan Engineering is seeking to raise $110 million for capital building projects and program support in these areas to further research discovery"

Ah... sounds like there might be some PR hype lurking in here somewhere...

Re:FTA...

[Da_Biz]

Ah... sounds like there might be some PR hype lurking in here somewhere...

Well, I think it's safe to assume there's PR hype because this is a press release. The little blurb at the end is nothing terribly shameful or surprising.

Strong as Steel?

[trout007]

I hate that comparison. Are they talking Yield Strength or Ultimate Strength? What is the Modulus of elasticity? If you are talking strength there are many different steels with widely different strengths. Also if you are talking body armor there is also it's energy absorption capability.

Re:Strong as Steel?

[SoapDish]

Judging from the description of the "Velcro effect" I'd wager they're talking about ultimate strength. And even then, they may be talking about specific strength, so it could actually require a much larger geometry to achive the same strength as steel.

And yes, yeild strength and ultimate strength are very different quantities when it comes to design (for those that don't know).

The layered construction makes it sound like the material's not isomorphic, and I bet there are different compression and tensile characteristics. Plus, it might not have good high temperature characteristics. Isn't PVA a thermoplastic?

So, of course there will be a lot more research required.

Plus, it's a composite, not a plastic.

Re:Strong as Steel?

[kebes]

If you're interested in the details (and have a subscription to Science), here's the actual paper:
Paul Podsiadlo, Amit K. Kaushik, Ellen M. Arruda, Anthony M. Waas, Bong Sup Shim, Jiadi Xu, Himabindu Nandivada, Benjamin G. Pumplin, Joerg Lahann, Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, and Nicholas A. Kotov "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites" Science 5 October 2007: 80-83. DOI: 10.1126/science.1143176.
Blurb:

Deposition of alternating nanoscale layers of clay particles and a polymer yields a transparent composite that is as stiff and strong as steel.

The abstract is:

Nanoscale building blocks are individually exceptionally strong because they are close to ideal, defect-free materials. It is, however, difficult to retain the ideal properties in macroscale composites. Bottom-up assembly of a clay/polymer nanocomposite allowed for the preparation of a homogeneous, optically transparent material with planar orientation of the alumosilicate nanosheets. The stiffness and tensile strength of these multilayer composites are one order of magnitude greater than those of analogous nanocomposites at a processing temperature that is much lower than those of ceramic or polymer materials with similar characteristics. A high level of ordering of the nanoscale building blocks, combined with dense covalent and hydrogen bonding and stiffening of the polymer chains, leads to highly effective load transfer between nanosheets and the polymer.

In response to your questions about actual material response, the paper discusses a variety of metrics for a variety of different preparation conditions. They report that the nano-composite material has an ultimate tensile strength 10 times greater than the pure PVA polymer, up to 480 MPa. They also state that the modulus, E, was 100 times greater than the pure polymer, up to 125 GPa, which they compare to Kevlar (E ~ 80 to 220 GPa).

In terms of energy absorption, they compare the uncrosslinked nano-composite to the crosslinked one. As you might imagine, the crosslinked one was more rigid (and gave rise to the modulus previously mentioned), having a low ultimate strain of 0.33 %. The uncrosslinked one deformed somewhat more (ultimate strain 0.7%), with higher energy absorption potential.

As you note, the comparison of "strong as steel" is not very helpful. But looking at the stress-strain curves, these materials look quite strong. Also, since you can adjust the material properties (optimizing for energy storage versus elastic modulus), they might be great for achieving desired performance for certain niche applications.

Re:Strong as Steel?

[Toonol]

The layered construction makes it sound like the material's not isomorphic, and I bet there are different compression and tensile characteristics.

I know almost nothing about material science. But if a layered material exhibits most of it's strength along one axis, couldn't the same process be adapted to use (for lack of a better term) threads? Multiple fine threads of distinct material bonded together, forming a type of cable. Wouldn't that show structural integrity along two dimensions instead of one?

Re:Strong as Steel?

[SoapDish]

Well, I made a mistake in that most. It should read isotropic, not isomorphic - I knew it sounded wrong.

Anyway, an isotropic material has the same properties in all directions - eg steel or aluminum (unless coldworked). An anisotropic material doesn't - eg fibre composites.

Fibre composites are strongest in the directions that the fibres run, and weaker in a direction perpendicular to the fibres. There are all sorts of weaves to control this, even 3-dimensional weaves.

Laminar/layered materials tend to be weaker in the axis normal to the layer's surface.

Of course, that's all if you consider tension. Compression may be different with different materials, and shear stress is very different still.

Re:Strong as Steel?

[dbIII]

No. It's Roland and Zonk. They don't have that much of a clue in this area so none of that applies. Strength to weight ratios have confused them this time and they are not actually talking about strength itself.

Re:Strong as Steel?

[TALlama]

Not being a physicist or anything, "Strong as Steel" was more helpful to me than anything you or the grandparent said.

Air-Craft?

[MrShaggy]

So if it is clear, would that meant that Wonder-Woman isn't far behind??

Re:Air-Craft?

[X0563511]

Sure, the frame might be transparent. But it will still be quite visible...

Don't forget all the wires, fluid lines (hydraulics, fuel), computer boards, engine components, the pilot, weapons, radar equipment...

It would look more like those human body models that show the internal organs in a transparent person-shaped case.

Oh and it probably wouldn't absorb/deflect radar nearly as well.

I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering it is one of the main uses for petroleum and will keep us mired in the middle east even if we were able to rid ourselves of the need for petroleum-based fuel.

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[jtroutman]

This is not the plastic you're thinking of. It's layers of montmorillonite clay, which is naturally occuring (Hydrated Sodium Calcium Aluminum Magnesium Silicate Hydroxide) and polyvinyl alcohol (the glue). Polyvinyl alcohol is derived from vinyl acetate, which in turn is made with ethylene and acetic acid with oxygen and a palladium catalyst. Petroleum is not necessary in any of these steps.

What's important to consider, though, is not what this is currently made from, but that it is a test bed for other materials. Imagine if, instead of using the montmorillonite clay, they used bucky tubes...what about a stronger polymer? This is a proof of concept, not the be-all and end-all application.

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[florescent_beige]

I'm just winging it here, but maybe the reason for making a lamella-type composite is that the matrix has to be thin on the order of molecule-size in order to get the unusual slip-stick behavior they compared to Velcro.

So, the clay lamellae they used are geometrically what is needed to organize the microstructure into planes, with very thin and controlled layers of matrix between the strong plates. A tangled mass of fibers would result in disorganized and uncontrollable inter-fiber regions.

What might be interesting is using the whole composite structure as described in TFA as a replacement matrix material in a classic fiber composite where the fibers, measured in microns, are much bigger than the dimensions of the platelet microstructure.

It's not obvious how such a material could be commercially built.

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[zippthorne]

You're not thinking global warming enough.

More valuable plastic means more oil will be used for producing plastic. If crude is too valuable to burn, then less will be burned. Sure, it doesn't really affect the middle east situation, but then, it doesn't matter what natural resource they sit on top of. They'd still be selling it spending that money in ways that don't make US look good.

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[Rich0]

This is not the plastic you're thinking of. It's layers of montmorillonite clay, which is naturally occuring

I can just see it - famous news anchor on TV talking about major manufacturers trying to cut costs and corners by making new-fangled commercial airliners out of mud! It will be the talk of the nation!

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[fnj]

Polyvinyl alcohol is derived from vinyl acetate, which in turn is made with ethylene and acetic acid with oxygen and a palladium catalyst. Petroleum is not necessary in any of these steps.

Just out of curiosity, where are you getting your ethylene? Ethylene is produced in the petrochemical industry by steam "cracking". In this process, gaseous or light liquid hydrocarbons are briefly heated to 750-950 C (thanks, Wikipedia). So if it's not from petroleum per se, it's no doubt (in practice) consuming hydrocarbon deposits. Yeah, you could synthesize it. You can synthesize pretty much anything - in the lab. You can synthesize gasoline. But ya gotta figure there's a reason nobody does in practice (with pretty inconsequential exceptions).

Oh, production is energy intensive, too. A typical world scale ethylene plant (about 1.5 billion pounds of ethylene per year) uses a 45,000 horsepower cracked gas compressor, a 30,000 horsepower propylene compressor, and a 15,000 horsepower ethylene compressor.

Palladium doesn't grow on trees, either.

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[mugenjou]

I can just see it - famous news anchor on TV talking about major manufacturers trying to cut costs and corners by making new-fangled commercial airliners out of mud! It will be the talk of the nation!

It will be the uprise of Elbonia as a global economically powerful nation!

Re:I'd been hoping we could get away from plastic

[jtroutman]

Without getting into the whole debate over the petroleum used to actually produce it, ethylene does not have to come from petroleum, it can also be derived, for instance, from corn. My point to the original poster was, though, that this is not the type of "plastic" he's thinking of, that is, something derived solely from petroleum.

As for palladium, no it doesn't grow on trees. But, like with ethylene, perhaps they can find a better "glue" as experimentation continues.

violence

[pkbarbiedoll]

Ya know, I'm not opposed to this technology being used to protect police officers and soldiers, but something in me cringes when that is the first suggested use listed in the article. We seem so hell bent on aggression and security that peaceful and scientific uses are at the bottom of the list or altogether neglected. For instance - this stuff might make motorcycle racing even more interesting - both from a rider's safety standpoint and bike technology.

Re:violence

[Anonymous Coward]

It's telling that you think saving lives of those who protect your loud mouth is a bad thing, and that the technology should, instead, be used for entertainment.

Re:violence

[geekboy642]

It's telling that you think saving lives of those who protect your loud mouth is a bad thing, and that the technology should, instead, be used for entertainment.

I thoroughly agree with the Coward above. What's the GP got against protecting soldiers whose only crime is being ordered into hell?

Re:violence

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bush administration is a foreign government. Aiding his troops hurts America and endangers Americans.

Re:violence

[thehatmaker]

I for one think that only good things can come from having police completely invulnerable to physical attack. This should make them both more temperate and accountable. But wait, the tax burden of buying expensive armour for police might cause an armed revolt, however, the police will be able to easily and safely put down the revolt using their new armour as protection; therefore we must buy this armour immediately - whatever the cost! stability and peace requires it! can i have a job in government now?

Plasteel

[Ramble]

Plasteel, anyone?

PVA...

[Alceste]

Dissolves pretty readily in water. I wonder how this is stabilized.

Re:PVA...

[the Jim Bloke]

In the article they mentioned cooperative hydrogen bonds. now, I can barely remember my high school chemistry but that does sound like something that would be vulnerable to water as a solvent. Still, I would guess it would be a slow process, and putting a waterproof coating on something is a technology that has been around longer than metalworking.

Re:PVA...

[kebes]

It turns out that these kind of materials are not water-soluble, even though both components are, and even though you can easily assemble them from water. It's certainly counter-intuitive, but the assemblies involve electrostatic (charge-charge) links and hydrogen-bonding (like in DNA) links. Even though those kinds of links are inherently water soluble, when you are layering "large" molecules (polymers and nano-platelets count as large in chemistry), then there are so many "sticker groups" that the overall binding is very strong. (There are other more subtle effects, like the entropy of assembly, also at play.) As a result, these materials don't readily dissolve in water.

In the actual scientific paper, they further explain how they "cross-link" the material to make it more stable. Cross-linking is basically chemistry that generates strong covalent bonds between the various molecules. (This is what happens when you make a strong rubber...) They do indeed indicate that the cross-linked materials are more stable against changes in humidity (the un-crosslinked materials swell a bit when exposed to a humid atmosphere; which might be bad for some applications).

Re:PVA...

[(Score.5, Interestin]

Dissolves pretty readily in water. I wonder how this is stabilized. It's also polyvinyl acetate, not alcohol. I'd hate to think what sort of properties polyvinyl alcohol would have.

Re:PVA...

[Loke the Dog]

Paint? Seems to work for steel, but maybe I'm missing something here.

Wait a minute....

[Hawthorne01]

I watched the Super Friends growing up, I know how this ends! Marvin and Wendy had to foil a plot from a guy named "King Plasto" who used stuff just like this in his evil attempt to take over the world. Someone call the Great Hall Of The Justice League and get Batman and Aquaman on this, stat!

To think I can remember that bad episode of a bad cartoon from the 70's, yet forgot my Dad's birthday this year. Again.

Sigh.

Re:Wait a minute....

[geekoid]

It's because you didn't sit in front of a box shouting your dads birthday.

The best use of all

[pwizard2]

They should start making condoms out of this!

Re:The best use of all

[BlueshiftVFX]

who ever modded you a Troll has probably never had a condom break.

Re:The best use of all

[Palpitations]

Damn, I wish I hadn't just used the last of my mod points a little while ago, I'd happily help remove that little troll thing for you...

At the same time, I'd love to see +5 troll rating for once, and I'm glad I can post instead of moderate. Mods, get to work!

As someone with an Apadravya piercing (second link certainly not safe for work), a thin, strong as steel condom actually would be a great thing for me. Right now, I'm stuck using normal condoms and having a much higher risk of them breaking, or using hard to find and very expensive ones that are very loose for the first few inches. The special ones for people with genital piercings are generally thicker, more expensive, and the loose tip doesn't give you nearly as many good sensations.

Anything that helps out with that is fine by me!

Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, right?

[UnAmericanPunk]

So... why not make cars out of this stuff? Think, if it's as strong as steel, if the car body was made out of this then it would be like having a armored car, or at least a 50's American car. Then with the lighter weight it should improve gas mileage quite a bit. As long as the manufacturing process isn't too costly or cost goes down with more production, this sounds like it would be great.

i understand the 'strong as steel part'

[siddesu]

i just want to know steel at what temperature.

Think of the children...

[nurb432]

Or the cops... or soldiers.. or anything but the 'common citizen'.

Forget humanitarian uses

[BlueF]

Body armor, biomedical, and unmanned aircraft are nice and all... but what I really want to know is when will this super-plastic will be used in new cars?!

For years cars have been getting heavier and heavier in the name of safety. It's about time someone comes up with something to make cars LIGHTER! While my motivation is purely motivated for better performance, there's got to be some practical benefits such as fuel economy for lighter (faster) cars!!

Re:Forget humanitarian uses

[compro01]

you can only make a car so light before that lightness becomes a problem. try driving a modern smallish car on a highway in a good crosswind. you're gonna be fighting to keep going straight. now imagine trying to do that in a car the same size that weighs half as much.

I'm all for fuel efficient, but "make it lighter" has pretty close limits.

Re:Forget humanitarian uses

[ChrisMaple]

For years cars have been getting heavier and heavier in the name of safety.

What planet are you from? Safety features that have been touted in recent years are air bags, crumple zones, and anti-lock brakes. Weight is correlated with safety only as an afterthought; weight-for-safety is not a goal sought by itself. The governmental pressure for higher mpg is one reason that lighter weight is sought. No designer of passenger vehicle deliberately adds weight unless there is some feature (like capacity or power) that demands it.

Re:Forget humanitarian uses

[Mawbid]

Fortunately, "it's too light" is generally a very easy problem to solve.

Re:Forget humanitarian uses

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but fortunately the passengers are getting heavier, so it'll balance out. ;)

Seriously, couldn't this problem be solved with good aerodynamic design?

Re:Forget humanitarian uses

[rrohbeck]

>For years cars have been getting heavier and heavier in the name of safety.

Which is only driven by the marketing departments of certain American car manufacturers, and, by extension, by the other manufacturers trying to compete in the US market.
The safest cars are mid size to large sedans (think 5-7 class BMWs, E-S class Mercs and similar), *not* large SUVs or trucks. Mass is the overriding factor only in a head-on collision, which is a minute percentage of all accidents. In the majority of other crash scenarios, trucks and SUVs look rather bad.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[Admiral Justin]

Because if less of the force is absorbed by the vehicle *crumpling* more of the force of a collision would be transferred to the occupants.

Also, you'll buy less cars if your car takes less damage. That's bad for the automotive industry.

Hard truth

[DerekLyons]

Why do we always have to go to "It's light! It's strong! This will clearly help prevent foreigners from killing our troops!"?

Because many of these materials are difficult to make, or extremely expensive, or not suited for all uses, or 'all of the above'. It normally takes many years, if at all, for exotic materials to enter the consumer market. When they do, it is typically on high end/luxury stuff first (where price is less of an object) and only later trickles down to the shelves of your local big box retailer.
 
Look at composites for example - despite having been around since the 1960's, you still won't find much made of it down at your local Wal-mart. There simply aren't that many uses that justify the expense and difficulty of manufacture.

Loose Plastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Can jet fuel melt super light plastic? :-)

Blame the movies.

[jd]

How many movies have you seen where the hero rescues household finances by preventing the cups from getting broken? Or builds a 200 mpg car by replacing the iron shell with plastic, preventing the total collapse of the US car industry and Western Civilization?

Let's face it, mundane (but realistic) uses aren't exciting and don't make good stories. The microwave gun that generates pain across nerve endings is discussed in terms of urban combat and riot-suppression, but in the real world, more people are probably going to end up using the device in farmland where electric fences are impractical or impossible, as a replacement for noisy bird scarers, possibly even in a very low-power form in medical diagnostics when you want to generate a very controlled stimulus to determine the location and extent of nerve damage, etc.

An ultra-light plastic would be valuable for so many things, from cutlery to possibly safer alternatives to metal for pins and plates within the human body to a replacement for aluminium in airframes to a replacement for metals (lead especially) in "unbreakable toys". Depending on thermal properties, it may have uses in ducting where you need something strong but light. Depending on exactly what is meant by "strong", it may become a replacement for steel cabling in reinforced concrete - plastics tend to be better at aging. Current plastic drains are notoriously feeble. Now, please consider that Victorian drains are only now starting to reach the end of their lifespan, and Roman-era aqueducts are still perfectly functional, so anything that lasts a mere hundred years is simply living up to what was expected of material science a hundred years ago, and we really should be looking to match or better a bunch of iron Age punks. Could this plastic offer a cost-effective way of matching some of the greatest material science achievements in history?

Re:Blame the movies.

[jtroutman]

I'm excited, not by what this can do, but by the concept itself. Imagine if, instead of using montmorillonite clay and polyvinyl acetate, they used bucky tubes and a stronger polymer and instead of just making sheets, twisted those sheets into strands. Might just work for a space elevator.

Re:Blame the movies.

[Anonymous Coward]

An ultra-light plastic would be valuable for so many things, from cutlery to...

Assuming the material (or some variation of it) has the necessary properties make good "cutlery", metal detectors installed for safety are suddenly less effective. If the material could be made in thick (or even millable) configurations, the plastic handgun becomes a possibility (no, Glocks don't count - they have plenty of metal parts to set off a metal detector). And Wandering Wombat was concerned that someone's first thought was a purely defensive military application; people like me must scare him shitless.

- T

Re:Blame the movies.

[Skrapion]

Hey now, be careful when talking about tubes on Slashdot.

Re:Blame the movies.

[Anonymous Coward]

But everyone knows that you're carrying a geek card when you put "bucky" before words. Witness how much cooler your post sounds when the bucky transformer is applied:

Hey now, be bucky careful when talking about bucky tubes on Buckydot.

Re:Blame the movies.

[Wandering Wombat]

Those are, sadly, excellent points. I cede my original post as maybe a little one-sided, or at least ignorant of the unfortunate truth.

*sigh* I still want unbreakable beer mugs.

Re:Blame the movies.

[Draek]

on the other hand, this is Slashdot so "unbreakable computer cases" ought to be exciting enough, isn't it? or maybe I'm just trying to justify myself, because that was my first idea when I saw the title, police officers be damned.

military purposes

[40ozFreak]

Why do new materials and technologies immediately become used for military and automotive purposes? Any time a new plastic, metal, fiber, or other new fangled material is developed by some University of Whatever, it is quickly stated that it will be used for armor and aircraft. Doesn't anyone want to build a house out of this stuff? Maybe...reinforce consumer vehicles to give them better crash test ratings? Everything gets a military use now. Fuck the military for assuming everything has a purpose for them. I'm tired of advancing military technology while neglecting schools and hospitals.

Re:military purposes

[zippthorne]

The military needs durable things that perform well. It's simply a yardstick by which the utility of something can be grossly communicated to everyone. i.e. if a material has vast military uses, it will have vast civilian uses as well. If a device can be relied upon in combat, it can sure as heck be relied upon in less critical situations.

There is a huge amount of overlap between military technology and medical technology, especially in the area of trauma. Advances made benefit everyone, although they may be immediately obvious to one side.

Rust-proff objects

[SilverBlade2k]

Now we'll be able to create objects and items that can replace metal and has no chance of rusting...like exterior of cars...

Re:Rust-proff objects

[ChrisMaple]

Like a Corvette or a DeLorean? (circa 1953 and 1981, respectively)

blue planet rpg?

[hitmark]

there they had a bioplastic that was used as building material, in various strengths.

as the name suggests, it was grown using bacteria.

hell, one book even had a "inflatable" structure. just pump in nutrient and it would erect itself, complete with windows and pre-fitted wiring.

Interesting Roland. I posted this 2 days ago here

[CFD339]

Here's my official WTF? I posted this exact story w/ a link to Science Daily's article two days ago -- before it was on Extreme Tech and half the other interwebs out there. I've never whined about having a story declined, but seeing the exact same story in here two days later isn't leaving me with that happy, warm, well fed feeling.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[vbraga]

Well, actually, you don't want the whole car to be that strong. It would transfer more energy to passengers in a crash. So, it's not all that simple.

PS: English is not my first (or my second ;-)) language, so, I'm deeply sorry for errors.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[mrbluze]

Because if less of the force is absorbed by the vehicle *crumpling* more of the force of a collision would be transferred to the occupants. Well nobody was saying you should make a car out of 1 foot thick steel-strength plastic. Even steel crumples if it's thin enough. It's just a matter of appropriate design.

Re: whining baby

[DragonTHC]

quit your whining. no one wants to hear it.

I wonder if y'all'll get this:

[Kamineko]

Your bullets cannot harm me!

My wings are like a shield of steel!

Re:I wonder if y'all'll get this:

[mark-t]

I loved that show when I was a kid! By the way, it just came out on DVD this summer... so us nostalgia buffs can watch all 100 episodes anytime!

no one has asked this question yet?

[DragonTHC]

at what temperature does it melt?

it's plastic. not steel.

Link to journal article

[backdoorstudent]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5847/80/

Light cars = Look out, some wind!

[Spy der Mann]

So... why not make cars out of this stuff?

I agree, to a certain point. Cars need a minimum weight as to not be pushed by lateral winds, so I don't think making the WHOLE body of this stuff would be a good idea. Having said that, this plastic could be a wonderful extra layer of protection for your car.

Re:Light cars = Look out, some wind!

[ChrisMaple]

There are a lot of heavy parts of a car that are probably not appropriate for plastic, especially an expensive plastic. Engine block and bearings come to mind, gears, radiator, electrical wires...

Better windows would be a real plus. If this stuff is transparent and can be engineered to be as flexible as steel, it would have a big advantage over the dangerous stuff we're using now.

Re:Light cars = Look out, some wind!

[barzok]

As long as it doesn't scratch easily. Lexan® is a terrific material, but in most applications it scratches very, very easily.

Re:Light cars = Look out, some wind!

[zuzulo]

I just assumed that if we were talking about applications where optical properties are important this new composite stuff would be used as a coating for traditional materials. So a thin layer of this stuff on top of lexan might indeed be useful in windows and windscreens.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[triffid_98]

As some people have pointed out, 'strong as steel' is really not much of a definition. Since it's a layered clay composite, it's probably fairly brittle. This means in applications where it needs to bend it will shatter. This is probably not what you want your car to do. OTOH, as ablative armor or in your car's structural members this stuff might work really well.

So... why not make cars out of this stuff? Think, if it's as strong as steel, if the car body was made out of this then it would be like having a armored car, or at least a 50's American car.

If they want adoption in the marketplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Start making condoms of it asap. Just think of the marketing opportunities... "When your boner's too much for a trojan..."

Biotech?

[Biff Stu]

Does anybody who creates the tags RTFA? (OK, I'm not new here. That's meant to be a rhetorical question.) I don't see how this is biotech. The stuff is made out of sequential layers of clay and PVA. These layers are deposited mechanically from solution. It's not like they have genetically engineered critters secreting some new cool substance. Yes, the researchers do compare the structure to mother of pearl, but other than a structural simularity, that's all there is.

Re:Biotech?

[mpthompson]

the researchers do compare the structure to mother of pearl

Would that not make it a biologically inspired material? Close enough to biotech for me.

Re:Biotech?

[Guppy]

I don't see how this is biotech.

This nanostructured technique is quite bio-mimetic, as the technique directly comes from study of Mother-of-pearl's microscopic structure. It has been studied for quite some time (this is not the first synthetic analogue created by materials scientists, there have been quite a few previous others), for its ability to take a brittle material (Calcium Carbonate -- Chalk) and increase its strength manyfold.

toss me!

[sanman2]

(in m'best scottish accent)

Miiittthhrrriilllll!!!

Obligatory...

[zegota]

This stuff has been around for years. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/09/30

So, they finally figured out...

[falken0905]

So, they finally figured out how to manufacture that light weight material found at the Roswell crash site eh? Took them long enough. Just one more product resulting from 'Alien Technology'. Ha!

In Soviet Disney ...

[A nonymous Coward]

Did they invent it by talking into the mouse?

In Soviet Disney, mouse talks into you!

Your sig

[A nonymous Coward]

If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!

I tried that and it didn't work, so I am posting this comment to take back my mod point. Neener neener neener!

Re:Your sig

[Tribbin]

Awww ok then.

Here is a picture I took that you might find interesting:

http://art.gnome.org/backgrounds/nature/2481

Why?

[Mantaar]

Mods, why is this a Troll? If you could tag him/her -1 Daydreamer, OK, but the suggestion is not all that far-fetched.

See, there are several major problems with nowadays condoms. First, they're quite fragile. Second, they don't like anything oily, which forces you to use water-based lubricants. Third, many people exhibit a latex allergy (geez, I almost typed LaTeX...)

This material seems to be fairly thin - and the layer-technology may even be able to make it flexible - who nows.

BUT: That stuff's too expensive, and it does not seem to be elastic, which would be a requirement.
So as it stands now, I don't see it coming...

Oblig. question

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it blend?

Seriously though...

[way2trivial]

do you know what kinds of problems they cause?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silicone+implants+cremation&btnG=Google+Search

Potenital use - sails

[ebonum]

Not sure if this would work, but it looks like a great material for Windsurfing sails. Mylar is thin, clear and delicate.

Re:Interesting Roland. I posted this 2 days ago he

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to cross secure out of your sig.

What if you didn't build cars

[bigtrike]

Or builds a 200 mpg car by replacing the iron shell with plastic, preventing the total collapse of the US car industry and Western Civilization? Just think how many more mpg it would get if you built a bicycle out of it instead

Re:What if you didn't build cars

[rts008]

Maybe I'm just confused, or still dazed from work, but I'm having a hard time with bicycles and miles per gallon (mpg). Do you mean that with this tech they could build bikes so efficient that petroleum burning vehicles would be obsolete?
I can vaguely imagine some (to me) near magical tech that combines a spring of this stuff with a flywheel system that enables you to pedal at first, then use stored energy...or something. (still dazed from work!) Trust me...I'm not trolling or flaming your post- I really don't understand where you were heading with this.
Well, now that my brain is engaged, TFA mentions it is not pliable enough(compared to steel) to probably make a spring-but something else may come of this tech in that direction.

If you have the time and inclination, I would really appreciate a reply(here or email: myusername+@hotmail.DOTcom) from you about this...you seem to have a cognitive thought about this, but it's not jumping out and biting me yet.
The light weight bike I get, but could this be taken much farther?

I used to cook in a restaurant, we were only open from 0500 to 1200 on Saturday, and were REALLY busy. We had hired a dishwasher named Billy- he was a stereotypical drunk, had several DUI's, and was confined to a bicycle as transportation. One Saturday he phoned in VERY drunk (I answered the phone) and claimed he 'couldn't get his bicycle started' and couldn't make it in to work. The boss fired him on the spot...er, the phone. I regretted the extra work, but I had to laugh my a** off!

Re:What if you didn't build cars

[jd]

The Olympic-style carbon-fibre bikes can push amazing speeds - for very short distances, and they are strong enough to do the job but nothing more. Replacing the standard plastic they combine with the carbon-fibre with this new plastic, you could probably build a marginally lighter bike that could set new records, but it still wouldn't be a bike you'd want to take out on the road. Remember, strength is NOT the same as rigidity, and the two are often in direct opposition.

Real Life Cyclone Ride Armor!

[graviplana]

Just think, Cyclone Ride Armor or Master Chief Armor could finally be a reality! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_(Robotech)

Re:Interesting Roland. I posted this 2 days ago he

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Slashdot's favourite link farm spammer, Roland, is back.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[geekinaseat]

Feel free to correct me on any of this as maybe it is a preconception about plastics but.... I'm pretty glad cars aren't made of this stuff as it seems it would be a lot less recyclable than using a metal, give it fifty years and we would have landfills full of the stuff.

"super-light" "strong as steel"?

[sdhoigt]

Roswell... almost there...

The original article said its "transparent"

[tkjtkj]

yup .. its in the original article "...transparent.." yet no pics were included at physorg.com

The application I dread this will be used

[British]

...is packaging!

As if blister packages weren't nearly impossible to open now. Hmm, let's cut with a scissors on the edge so the further you cut, a plastic blade starts to form that convieneintly moves toward your hand.

Now we need a plasma cutter to open up the packaging to our latest gadgets?

Re:The application I dread this will be used

[Krishnoid]

Or this item, which I think was available just in time for a couple christmas's ago. I bet they could make the blade in this device out of the superstrong plastic though.

Re:You know what else is as strong as steel?

[MyLongNickName]

My rock hard cock

Pictured here

Really? 200 years ago?

[Valdrax]

That's what they said about cold-rolled steel two hundred years ago. Everyone had to settle for wood and stone. Really? They made computer cases out of wood and stone 200 years ago?

Re:Really? 200 years ago?

[canajin56]

That reminds me of that quote, "Man, how did they keep server farms cool before air conditioning was invented?"

Super Plastic strong as steel

[lsatenstein]

If the claim is true, then we only need to protect it from the elements (sun) and use it to construct bridges. The bridges will not support rust from salt.

obligatory

[confused one]

But, can they replace the clay with carbon buckey tubes, draw a long filament, and make a space elevator out of it?

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! The 3D printers (also called prototyping machines) can finally put to use making real parts in 3D. They print objects layer by layer using light plastic. If they can 'print' plastic which turns out to be as strong as steel (the stuff mentioned in the article), then they can print 3d parts as strong as steel.

Even more plastic

[Bullseye_blam]

I for one, am glad we haven't run out of new technology to make even lighter 15+ thousand dollar bicycles.

Wouldnt work

[imsabbel]

Think about it: The weight of the steel is an essential part of the design of a sword. The whole reason your _swing_ it instead of "just press it against somebody" is to give it impulse that will keep it going when meeting resistance.

Your plasteel swords would just bounce of any kind of armour.

(lightsabers dont count)

Re:Wouldnt work

[Dr_Barnowl]

Depends on the fighting style. Styles arranged around lunges and thrusts like western fencing don't need weight, or even much in the way of stiffness. To quote a famous courtesan, "It takes less than a pound of pressure to cut skin.". And armour typically has chinks that can be exploited by a skilled opponent, it's mostly good versus unskilled opponents - the sort who rely on bludgeoning weapons and heavy slashing blades.

Re:Wouldnt work

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean a quote of a fat greasy nerd who wrote something for a chick to read in a script, I hope.

Re:Wouldnt work

[joto]

Think about it: The weight of the steel is an essential part of the design of a sword. The whole reason your _swing_ it instead of "just press it against somebody" is to give it impulse that will keep it going when meeting resistance.

So if I let you have a 50-pound heavy blade, and I can carry a razor-sharp blade that is longer than yours, but with almost no momentum or weight, you would win? I don't think so. At least not unless you were significantly better than me at fencing.

Re:Wouldnt work

[nilbud]

I wouldn't fancy a foil in the eyeball all the same.

Re:Wouldnt work

[Anonymous Coward]

(Looks disgusted, pulls out gun and shoots Joto)

[/Raiders]

Re:Wouldnt work

[The One and Only]

50 pounds is unwieldy and pretty unreasonable for any sword--the Scottish Claymore was around 5 or 6 pounds, with the German Zweihaender not much heavier than that. Besides which, your argument has a pretty bad fallacy: if I say "power consumption is a vital feature in the design of mobile computers", a counterargument along the same lines as yours might be, "Yes, but if I had a dual-core machine with only 2 hours of battery life, I could still do more than someone with a 168-hour laptop that only ran CP/M and had no internet connectivity." The importance of any one feature doesn't necessarily negate the importance of other features. More to the point--if we both had Claymores of the same length and sharpness, except mine was heavier, and if we had the same level of skill and physical ability, I would probably win.

Re:Wouldnt work

[joto]

More to the point--if we both had Claymores of the same length and sharpness, except mine was heavier, and if we had the same level of skill and physical ability, I would probably win.

If the swords were blunt, you would win. If the swords were razor sharp, I would win. A heavier sword can still do damage, even if it's not usable for cutting. If the sword is razor sharp, I do not need much momentum to penetrate your body, and the sword that can be handled most easily will be the best. If you add armor to the equation, it would again be to your advantage, unless we're talking lightsabers that would cut through the armor as easily as your flesh. Anyway, if the material is stronger and lighter than steel, but you still depend upon momentum, there's nothing stopping me from fine-tuning the feel of the sword with added weight where needed. With a steel sword, it's a bit more impractical to add antigravity/antimomentum-devices, and attaching helium-balloons would look very funny.

Re:Wouldnt work

[adinb]

Another SCA rapier fighter? ::grin::

Re:Wouldnt work

[fm6]

Dude, think about it before you say "think about it". Your physics are pre-Newtonian. If weight (or more properly, mass) is what makes a sword deadly, how can a tiny little bullet kill? Kinetic energy is important in both cases, and that's a combination of mass and velocity. So the tiny bullet is deadly because it has a lot of velocity.

Of course, you'd have to swing the plastic sword harder, but it'd be easier to swing hard. I don't actually know if that's a good tradeoff, never having fought with edged weapons (or anything deadlier than a water balloon). But it obvious that you haven't either.

Not to mention problem number 1..

[cheros]

Don't forget that that plasma cutter will come packaged as well. Duh.

I've taken to letting staff remove such packaging before I leave the shop. Not does it create a nice bit of awareness just how bloody irritating such packaging it is, is also ensures I don't have all the rubbish to clean up, and they can have a pop at hurting themselves whilst trying to open the package.

God alone knows how many injuries are caused by this mania for indestructible packaging.

Did you fail reading 101?

[pkbarbiedoll]

Maybe you missed where I said I was not opposed to using this tech for security in the first sentence of my reply.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[Palpitations]

English is not my first (or my second ;-)) language And yet you speak it better than many native English speakers... Grammar nazis be damned - you make perfect sense to me. I wish the US education system taught me enough to be able to speak a second language as well as you speak English. And English isn't even your second?

*sigh* I feel cheated. Most of what I know is self taught, but damn, it would be wonderful to have an education system that did as good of a job as the one you obviously have (yeah, that's making an assumption, but I assume it's true).

I hope to learn either Swedish (bork bork bork!), Dutch, or Norwegian at some point soon... I haven't decided which yet. In any case, you have no reason to apologize for your English :)

Transparent Aluminum!!!

[cc_pirate]

Anyone else remember Star Trek IV?

"Computer... Computer?... Computer!"
"Ah, you have to use the keyboard"
"How quaint!"

Anyway, while this material isn't metallic, since it is transparent, sounds like we have our whale transporting material. :)

Re:Interesting Roland. I posted this 2 days ago he

[joto]

Here's my official WTF? I posted this exact story w/ a link to Science Daily's article two days ago

That's what you did wrong. You need to rewrite the summary in your own words, slightly more imprecise and misguiding compared to the original. You must put it in your blog. And you must be friends with the slashdot editors. Failing to meet these three simple rules, your article didn't get posted.

How is this an advance?

[the eric conspiracy]

There are plenty of plastics stronger than steel. Heck during the 50's scientists encapsulated the space robot Gort in a block of such plastic.

more obvious use than that...

[djdavetrouble]

I was thinking more along the lines of "plastic stuff that doesn't break right away".
unlike all of the other plastic crap in my kids life that lasts a month a best.

Light cars = more dangerous in collisions

[Solandri]

It's an unfortunate side effect of physics which contributed to fueling the SUV boom over the last decade. When two vehicles collide, momentum is conserved, meaning if when two vehicles collide, the crumpled masses end up moving in the general direction of the heavier vehicle. This means the occupants of the heavier vehicle experience lower accelerations (safer), while the occupants of the lighter vehicle experience greater accelerations (more dangerous). This is why car vs. train accidents are almost always deadly for the car's occupants.

Given how important a factor safety has become when people buy cars, it may not be bad to consider legislating something to moderate the beneficial effect that additional mass has on safety. Something like a safety tax or increased insurance premiums for heavier vehicles, to add a financial disincentive to making cars heavy (and gas-guzzlers). As long as everyone's vehicle weight decreases in step, nobody is exposed to additional risk than before.

Re:Light cars = more dangerous in collisions

[Anonymous Coward]

"it may not be bad to consider legislating something to moderate the beneficial effect that additional mass has on safety. Something like a safety tax or increased insurance premiums for heavier vehicles,"

Fascist.

will it blend

[SoyChemist]

But will it blend? Seriously, I would love to know if a sheet of this plastic can stop bullets or at least slow them down enough to let kevlar catch them. It would be a great backing for kevlar, but not as breathable as I would like. Perhaps it could be used to lightly armor vehicles. P.S. I put the hick in vehicle.

Re:will it blend

[Anonymous Coward]

wait until they make guns and bullets out of this stuff.

oblig meme

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new transparent plastic overlords.

Why military uses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people here have been asking "Why military uses of this new material come up first? Why not A, B or C". Just a small, polite suggestion to those that have been asking: try wearing the current generation of interceptor body armor for 8-12 hours straight in 130 degree heat.

I for one welcome our new armor plated overlords. Even though I know that I will never be able to ditch my old kevlar plates for ones made out of this "plasteel" material due to slow developement times/testing/military getting off its @$$ and buying some. Assuming that it works of course.

Something that's not important to you, might be important to someone else.

Why didn't he know.....?

[hanakj]

I've always wondered about that. Since Scotty was supposedly the "Engineers' Engineer", why didn't HE know who invented it?

If it's only as strong as steel...

[PonyHome]

Why not use steel? I'm sure it's much cheaper, and can be purchased almost anywhere. And what does "strong as steel" even mean? After all, even steel ranges from 50,000 PSI tensile strength in mild steel to over 110,000 PSI in cobalt steels. Pound for pound, aluminum is stronger than steel. So are titanium and tungsten. In tensile strength, kevlar is FAR stronger per pound than steel.

"As strong as steel" is not only absurdly over-used as a metaphor, it's also practically meaningless.

Re:Light cars = safer and more fuel efficient, rig

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm . . . no shit, dude.

I guess we live in a world where you can state the obvious and get insightful mod points for it.

Finally...

[Vacardo]

We're one step closer to seeing REAL Stormtroopers on our streets.