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Team designs carbon nanostructure stronger than diamonds:
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have architecturally designed plate-nanolattices—nanometer-sized carbon structures—that are stronger than diamonds as a ratio of strength to density.
In a recent study in Nature Communications, the scientists report success in conceptualizing and fabricating the material, which consists of closely connected, closed-cell plates instead of the cylindrical trusses common in such structures over the past few decades.
"Previous beam-based designs, while of great interest, had not been so efficient in terms of mechanical properties," said corresponding author Jens Bauer, a UCI researcher in mechanical & aerospace engineering. "This new class of plate-nanolattices that we've created is dramatically stronger and stiffer than the best beam-nanolattices."
According to the paper, the team's design has been shown to improve on the average performance of cylindrical beam-based architectures by up to 639 percent in strength and 522 percent in rigidity.
[...] Bauer said the team's achievement rests on a complex 3-D laser printing process called two-photon polymerization direct laser writing. As a laser is focused inside a droplet of an ultraviolet-light-sensitive liquid resin, the material becomes a solid polymer where molecules are simultaneously hit by two photons. By scanning the laser or moving the stage in three dimensions, the technique is able to render periodic arrangements of cells, each consisting of assemblies of plates as thin as 160 nanometers.
One of the group's innovations was to include tiny holes in the plates that could be used to remove excess resin from the finished material. As a final step, the lattices go through pyrolysis, in which they're heated to 900 degrees Celsius in a vacuum for one hour. According to Bauer, the end result is a cube-shaped lattice of glassy carbon that has the highest strength scientists ever thought possible for such a porous material.
Journal Information:
Cameron Crook et al. Plate-nanolattices at the theoretical limit of stiffness and strength, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15434-2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @07:26PM (5 children)
Is this a useful step toward a material to build a space elevator?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 14 2020, @07:56PM
That was my first thought too, but it's worth remembering that, at least at the moment, you need a microscope to see the pieces they build.
Much better, for now, to save the space elevator for worlds with lower gravity, so that cables that can actually be built are relatively feasible. For Earth and similar worlds (e.g. Venus, if anyone wants to go there) a PinWheel is a much better approach. For this kind of project you don't want to be stressing the building materials anywhere near their yield point. A failure could have unfortunate consequences.
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(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday April 14 2020, @10:58PM (3 children)
No, you need tensile and shear strength for that.
A space elevator is basically a string. Diamonds make for really shitty string. Making harder diamond doesn't help. What we need is string that can withstand being used to swing around a satellite.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @04:40AM
It could be used to build a tower though. If you make one 100km tall and launch from the top you reduce your fuel load significantly and you can optimize your engines for use in a vacuum.
If your navigation is good enough even better would be to use the tower as the pickup point for the pinwheel HiThere suggests. A rotating skyhook is much more achievable anyway, and you still get most of the benefits of an elevator by using solar-powered ion engines at the hub to maintain its orbit. A rotating skyhook also gets you to orbit as fast as a current rocket, an elevator would take days.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday April 15 2020, @12:38PM (1 child)
It does bring up an interesting question, though.
Just how strong are chemical bonds?
What are the theoretical limits on strength of materials formed from atoms?
So far I've only seen space elevators discussed in terms of *known* materials, like Kevlar or diamond.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @02:48PM
Just how foolproof are systems to stop attacks on a space elevator? Or how strong does it need to be to withstand such attacks?
Hijack or hire a plane, fly into the space elevator, you might not even have to stay or be on the plane.