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Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
A research team from Tsinghua University in Beijing has developed a fibre they say is so strong it could even be used to build an elevator to space.
They say just 1 cubic centimetre of the fibre – made from carbon nanotube – would not break under the weight of 160 elephants, or more than 800 tonnes. And that tiny piece of cable would weigh just 1.6 grams.
"This is a breakthrough," said Wang Changqing, a scientist at a key space elevator research centre at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xian who was not involved in the Tsinghua study.
The Chinese team has developed a new "ultralong" fibre from carbon nanotube that they say is stronger than anything seen before, patenting the technology and publishing part of their research in the journal Nature Nanotechnology earlier this year.
"It is evident that the tensile strength of carbon nanotube bundles is at least 9 to 45 times that of other materials," the team said in the paper.
But hey, it's China, please consume with a medium-sized boulder of salt.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2018, @03:03AM
For anyone stuck thinking in US Customary and comparing with more conventional materials:
Down inside tfl it gets past the hype and quotes this new fiber as 80 gigapascal material
1 gigapascal is close to 140,000 psi (pounds/inch^2)
140,000 psi is the nominal yield strength of 4130 "chrome-moly" alloy steel, commonly used in welded steel tubing structures
Thus, on a cross section area basis the nanotube material is ~80 times stronger than a good (but not great) quality steel. On a strength/mass basis it is much better, since it will be lighter for a given volume of material.