metal lighter than air by 1kiki

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metal lighter than air

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Thursday, December 1, 2011 04:56
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:36 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://news.bioscholar.com/2011/11/world%E2%80%99s-lightest-material-1
00-times-lighter-than-styrofoam-developed.html

World’s lightest material 100 times lighter than Styrofoam developed

A team of researchers have developed the world’s lightest material, which is one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam.

A team of researchers from UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have developed the material with a density of 0.9 mg/cc.

The new material redefines the limits of lightweight materials because of its unique “micro-lattice” cellular architecture.

The researchers were able to make a material that consists of 99.99 percent air by designing the 0.01 percent solid at the nanometer, micron and millimeter scales.

“The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” Dr. Tobias Schaedler, the lead author, said.

The material’s architecture allows unprecedented mechanical behaviour for a metal, including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50 percent strain and extraordinarily high-energy absorption.

“Materials actually get stronger as the dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale,” Lorenzo Valdevit, principal investigator on the project, said.

Comment - By comparison, air is 1.5 mg/cc and aerogel is 1.9 mg/cc

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:42 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I wonder if this material is a good substance for building things, or whether it is merely a curiosity.

I can see where it might be useful in batteries.

If it has any kind of material strength, perhaps a 'solid airship' might someday be possible, by designing a massive cylinder of this substance.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:04 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I did some additional research, and I do not think this substance is lighter than air.

http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2011/11/21/meet-the-metal-microlattice-that
s-lighter-than-air/

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:26 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I looked around for the density of air and got several different figures, however Wiki lists the density of air at approximately room temperature (25 C or 77 F) as 1.184 or about 1.2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density If the metal lattice were not saturated with air (ie if it were in a vacuum) it would be it's measured low value. Given that it's saturated with air under room conditions, the density is the combined density of air and metal, which is heavier than air.

THIS I have to say is a cool picture - THANKS for the link.

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:29 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I suppose even if it was created in a vacuum and sealed, it would be crushed by air pressure when exposed to an airy environment.

Oh well. There goes my dream for a solid airship. ;-)

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:32 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Actually - from what I read the answer is no . Apparently it's quite sturdy due to it's internal structure (though on this I may be misreading - I'd have to find out more).

Interesting to think about considering the aviation technology thread and the American Airlines thread.

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:34 PM

BYTEMITE

Space elevators and sky hooks.

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:38 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Well, if they CAN 'fill' it with vacuum, and produce it in volume, it will be a wonder.

Though even if they can only produce it in 'heavier than air' form, it may be capable of filling some interesting roles. Airplane wings that weigh a tiny fraction of the current amount would certainly be an innovation. Less thrust needed to go airborne, more wingspan possible, perhaps. Who knows?

It is indeed fun to contemplate.

--Anthony

ETA: I wonder... if they can dope it with something flammable, and it is filled with air, then maybe it could become a solid rocket fuel?

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:01 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

I suppose even if it was created in a vacuum and sealed, it would be crushed by air pressure when exposed to an airy environment.

Oh well. There goes my dream for a solid airship. ;-)

--Anthony

Not so fast - you could have "fuel cells" of this stuff make up the airship, and they're filled with helium, making it MUCH lighter than air. Probably get you to a much smaller blimp, too.

I remember a sci-fi author (Larry Niven or Arthur Clarke) positing "foamed metal". Looks like that's pretty close to what this latticework metal is.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:46 PM

DREAMTROVE

It's porous, it's heavier than air because it contains air. Pump it full of helium instead of air. If it decays in the environment you could fill it with some nanite that would make more of it. Maybe it would get out of control and fill the planet with the stuff. An ocean of sponge metal. Slinky waves crashing on the shore.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, December 1, 2011 4:56 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

And the article from which the article about the article was taken.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396633,00.asp

Unfortunately, the original article in Science is subscription only, except for an abstract.

Quote:
Ultralight (<10 milligrams per cubic centimeter) cellular materials are desirable for thermal insulation; battery electrodes; catalyst supports; and acoustic, vibration, or shock energy damping. We present ultralight materials based on periodic hollow-tube microlattices. These materials are fabricated by starting with a template formed by self-propagating photopolymer waveguide prototyping, coating the template by electroless nickel plating, and subsequently etching away the template. The resulting metallic microlattices exhibit densities ρ ≥ 0.9 milligram per cubic centimeter, complete recovery after compression exceeding 50% strain, and energy absorption similar to elastomers. Young’s modulus E scales with density as E ~ ρ2, in contrast to the E ~ ρ3 scaling observed for ultralight aerogels and carbon nanotube foams with stochastic architecture. We attribute these properties to structural hierarchy at the nanometer, micrometer, and millimeter scales.

What's interesting to me is that the material the lattice is composed of (mostly nickel) is not particularly light in itself, but that the design allows it to be formed in such a rigid structure using so little of the material.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the lattice design (electroplating and then removing a template) is going to produce any gas-tight volumes that could be filled with lighter gasses or a vacuum, so it'll probably never be lighter than air on its own. Now if you could use it as a support for a very thin gas-impervious membrane...

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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