I take umbrage at all these popsci articles that keep breathlessly insisting that the new wondermaterial is as “strong” as steel without meaningfully specifying how. Because inevitably it only matches just one mechanical property of steel, if it even manages that (so also look out for weasel words like “nearly as strong as steel”).
As strong in terms of tensile strength? Shear strength? Hardness? Elastic modulus? Abrasion resistance?
In this case it’s compressive strength. No other properties are mentioned except weight. That’s not terribly impressive from a mechanical engineering standpoint. From a chemistry standpoint, sure. But steel – even then, there are oodles of potential steel alloys – has a rough compressive strength ranging from 500-ish to a maximum of about 1500 MPa. Big whoop. Most ceramics meet or handily exceed that, and quite a lot of them are significantly lighter than steel. So why don’t we build airplanes out of those? Because their other properties are completely unsuitable for the task, especially for large pieces. In particular they’re much too brittle.
You want to know what else has a compressive (and tensile!) strength of up to 500 MPa? Aluminum. Guess what we build airplanes out of.
This is a great comment, and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks!
TLDR; its carbon based and same like other carbon based super materials its difficult to produce on large scale. at least for now
Carbon really is the closest thing to magic sci fi materials. It’s just so cool how strong it is and how versatile it could be. And to top it off it’s fucking everywhere so if we can figure out how to make things like this more effectively it wouldn’t even be that expensive.
Graphene is the most amazing material, it can do anything you can imagine - except leave the lab.
Lol thanks
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So, no space elevator in the next few months?
the real problem is we keep trying from the ground up
it’s going to win when we can lower it
I get hints of a joke from your comment but I’m not certain, so I’ll mention that space elevators are currently impossible because the weight of the material to build it wouldn’t be able to support itself.
I remember an Arthur Clarke novel where a space ship needs water from the planet below. The easiest thing is to lower cables from space and then lift some ice bergs.
Not for us plebians
Nice, can’t wait to feel this coursing through my blood and falling in the rain.
This is probably our generation’s asbestos.
Isn’t that plastic already?
Yea, we’re going for the combo.
I should have said “one of” our generation’s asbestosK-k-k-k-killing spree!!!
Does it scale for manufacturing? That’s usually where these things fail.
Thumbnail looks like Chex cereal.
I’m going to eat carbon!
