Mass Production of Carbon Nanotubes Now Possible

The space elevator needs far longer nanotubes then "Kilogram" worth ones.

The key is mass produced nano-tubes. Can't wait to see the next Lance armstrong winning the tour de france on a bike the wieghs less then the clothingthe rider wears

how strong are we talking here? strong enough for armored suits, or even farther, for tanks and stuff?

I think they are stronger against impact than steel, so armored vehicles could be a possibility. I might be wrong though since its been a while since ive read up on this stuff.

You're right there Alan, there are plans for using this for armor.

"This fiber will provide for a new generation of high-strength fabrics and energy-absorbing materials, such as vehicle armor,"

However, if you read about the technology in the second link, it's said that so far the carbon nanotubs are very unreliable. They somtimes tangle, or can be impure, but with time this problem should be solved. The applications mentioned in business week below are really amazing...I had no idea that they were so versitile and planned to be used in so many industries.

www.sciencenews.org...
www.businessweek.com...

[edit on 5-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

True, carbon nanotubes at this time are very unreliable. They are not very useful when they are tangled and with impurities. They need to be arranged in a pattern in order to improve their preformance.

Is still don't think carbon nanotubes are that light, sure they are lighter than steel by a great margin. If I can remember from a while ago they ar a 6th the wheight of iron in it's dense form, this is from memory though.

That's Steel you're thinking of, theoretically speaking of course.

1/6th the Weight of Steel and up to 100 times stronger.

Wow...that means 1 cm of nanotube armor would = 100cm of steel and weigh 1/6th as much.

That would mean that main battle tanks and helos would once again become top dog on the battle field. How much kinetic energy would it take to pierce 10cm of that stuff?? (Think 100cm or roughly 40 inches of steel...battleship type protection). How big a missle / round would it take to deliver that energy?

15" guns in tanks!?

And a suit of medival armor would act like 2-3 inches of steel, which stops most infantry weapons. Are we going back to knights in armor?

This would have a major impact on the battlefield.

Thanks for correcting my wording. Im not talking about steel though, just pure iron, for comparison purposes. Steel has about the same molar mass (correct me if I'm wrong), but contains carbon, manganese and other materials which makes it heavier. Actualy it is 1000 times stronger, however the nanotubes must be in a proper configuration. If they have faults in them like tangles, impurities, incomplete segements, and/or physical flaws (defects) the structual strength is greatly compramised. Carbon nanotubes are unpredictible and are suseptible to stress fractures much like glass. Just as if you constantly bend a plasic ruler back and forth, it will flex but it will break sooner or later almost unpredictably.

I found that the maximum strength of CNT is ~30 GPa, Steel is 1.2GPa.

Carbon Nanotubes used for tanks would be great, the only problem is that the denature at rather low tempratures. It would resist small arms fire, but shells will generate too much heat on impact which will break up the tubes.


[edit on 7/5/2005 by GoldEagle]

Maybe you could coat the nanotubes with some sort of fire resistant material? I'm not sure what exists out there but I'd guess that could be a possibility. How about durability? I know that carbon fiber when scratched becomes completely unreliable and safe. Would the same problem exist for the carbon nanotubes as well? This is something that I would really be concerned about, especially if it is to be use for armor of any sort.

[edit on 5-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

couple of things:

whats a space elevator?

also, would not it be better if carbon nano tubes where used to heal humans insead of kill them?

"its a sad state of affairs that whenever new techonogy, especally ICT comes along, the first people to get their hands on it are the milliary."

which provides a lead... could a carbon nanotubes be used in the production of computers and AI (artifal intellegence)? at which one must ask the question: will computers eventally take over? [www.abovetopsecret.com...]

Blue_Sky: The nanotubes are not being designed for use in killing humans as of yet. So far the only applications proposed have been for vehical and personal defense, more efficient power cables, the space elevator of course, and computer chips that are smaller, run faster, and have transistors that can be placed one on top of the other, a feat silicon has never been able to accomplish.

Saying that the nanotubes will lead to the machines taking over is going a bit far I think. Sure, they may be used in the production of better computer chips, but there are many many hurdles to overcome before a computer can act anything like a human, let alone think like one if that's even possible. CNT's will play only a minor role in the development of better AI and such....the most important things to focus on I believe are programming, and in the case where machines would be taking over, advances in the field of robotics.

www.universetoday.com...

[edit on 5-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

ok, maybe i was a bit far saying that.

but an elevator into space? what would stop it falling back to earth with an almighty crash? would not it be very expensive to build and run?

Wrong question, the correct question would be how would we keep it in one piece as the rotation of the earth could tear it apart once deployed, counterweight + centripical force would put tremendous pressures and stresses on the tether, and yes it would be expensive but once up it would pay for itself within a decade due to the Space boom that would follow as it would bring the costs down 95% from what they currently are, maybe even more so.

The space elevator concept is a good one once you understand it better. The thing is that I still belive that the company "liftport" might be a con, designed to steal patents, profiteer, and in the end not build the thing, the executives will then retire to a Carrabiean island and live happily ever after in their seaside condos, sipping their lemonade as they watch the sun go down. I rather NASA build it then them. But again this is just what it think.

The mass production of CNT didn't really put the space elevator in my mind when I heard it. I was more about it's uses as a building material. It can be used and coated with a fire resistant foam. It would reduce the need for concrete columbs every so often to support the structures floors. The I thought about it's uses as an aircraft material for super light aircraft.

Well, supposedly the counterbalance will be an asteroid moved into space. I was a bit skeptical of the plan at first, but I got this directly from NASA. This doesn't mean that I believe it will work though...The winds and such will have an effect, but won't be too much of a problem. The elevator will be built on the equatorial line where there are no hurricanes and it will "allign with the the geostational orbit" so there should be less stress on the CNT's than if they were used to build the elevator somewhere like in the US.



There are also plans for a tower, 50 kilometers tall just to anchor the tether down! At least the material for the tether will be strong enough not to break. It was calculated that the material will need to have 62 GigaPascals of strength to be suitable for the space elevator, and the nanotubes have a strength of 200, triple what's needed. So hopefully this will be built in our lifetimes and won't turn out to be a big flop and monumental waste of money. It's said that they want to build it by the middle of this century, but with the setbacks that seem to accompany every major project on this planet, who knows how long that will be . By the way, I made a mistake in quoting a bad source earlier on....the elevator will be 36,000 kilometers high, not the 100,000 that the other site mentioned.

science.nasa.gov...

[edit on 7-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

what stops it burning up as it re-enters?

Whats stops what?

If your talking about the elevator...then.....the only reason things heat up when they come from space and down to earth is there speed, which creates friction with our atmosphere and temp rises. The the elevator will be going slow enough that heat is a non issue.

1 pound is equal to 454 grams. That's about the 2.2 conversion someone stated earlier. Also, This is much more powerful than any other metal because of the honeycomb effect found in the structure, no? And, if it does have a honeycomb effect, does this not also make it more pliable, considering it is mostly empty space?

So, could this stuff be used to replace plastics, because that would be great.

we need something to repalce plasctics, as oil (sooner or later) is gonna run out. i think that cnt would have to be mass-produced on a grand scale for that to happen though.
just a thought-could one produce plasitcs without oil?