Check this [censored] out, as the inbred Southerner said as his famous last words.

Jasper Janssen said:

Move over woven carbon fibres. If this is cheap and doable en masse, there
goes the carbon fibre shortage as well.

I sort of doubt it. They say that it is "weight for weight stronger
than steel"... but this is true of many materials... including wood.

and here's Ezekiel!!

draws energy from the surrounding space
then
pop!!
disappears.

tibetan prayer wheel cycles custom frames only
forget gunnar. here yesterday...

the 1 0z bicycle no batteries needed.
plugs into the medulla.

Ron Ruff said:

I sort of doubt it. They say that it is "weight for weight stronger
than steel"... but this is true of many materials... including wood.

Yeah, but carbon nanotubes, man! NANOTUBES!

Kidding aside, it turns out to actually only be .5 mm nanotubes that are
more or less woven together like cotton wool, rather than actual larger
nanotubes. If you could do the same with 1 cm long nanotubes, though, I
have no doubt whatsoever you'd get a stronger material than regular carbon
fiber.

Jasper

"Ron Ruff" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jasper Janssen said:

Move over woven carbon fibres. If this is cheap and doable en masse,
there
goes the carbon fibre shortage as well.

I sort of doubt it. They say that it is "weight for weight stronger
than steel"... but this is true of many materials... including wood.

One of the reasons that wood is such a wonderful structural material is that
it is constructed of tiny, aligned tubes glued together. Being formed into
tiny tubes does wonders for the compressive strength parallel to the fibers.
Basically, thin walled tubes are very weight efficient for compression. In
wood the tubes are the plant cells and the orientation of the fibers is the
grain. Wood is a very efficient composite material and if CF can be formed
into tubes, it might be a large improvement as measured by weight to
strength.

i dream of a one seat one jump 1 + 1, 3 wheel carbon nanotube monocoque
,
3 electric motors spinning around the axle stubs, cesium batteries....

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

i dream of a one seat one jump 1 + 1, 3 wheel carbon nanotube monocoque
,
3 electric motors spinning around the axle stubs, cesium batteries....

Stick with the talking to animals, okay Gene?

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

"Ryan Cousineau" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

i dream of a one seat one jump 1 + 1, 3 wheel carbon nanotube monocoque
,
3 electric motors spinning around the axle stubs, cesium batteries....

Stick with the talking to animals, okay Gene?

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

He dreams of electric sheep

those of you who on the trailing edge
always
disappoint us on the cutting edge
a deray of nanotubes
a nanotube hang glider!
tennis?
how bout a nice 16 foot nanotube...
and there's the FS-nanotube
and what do you speak of sheep?

Jasper Janssen said:

Ron Ruff said:

I sort of doubt it. They say that it is "weight for weight stronger
than steel"... but this is true of many materials... including wood.

Yeah, but carbon nanotubes, man! NANOTUBES!

Kidding aside, it turns out to actually only be .5 mm nanotubes that are
more or less woven together like cotton wool, rather than actual larger
nanotubes. If you could do the same with 1 cm long nanotubes, though, I
have no doubt whatsoever you'd get a stronger material than regular carbon
fiber.

Jasper

Absolutely right. I work with nanotubes every day, and I can tell you
that tubes longer than 1 mm or so cannot be mass-produced at this time.
This definitely limits the strength of nanotube composite materials.

Another problem is that these materials include, along with all the
carbon nanotubes, a big bunch of amorphous carbon junk which doesn't do
much for strengthening the composite.

But the field is progressing rapidly. I would not be surprised to see
a carbon nanotube composite bike frame 5 years from now...

Dan

Quoted message said:

those of you who on the trailing edge
always
disappoint us on the cutting edge
a deray of nanotubes
a nanotube hang glider!
tennis?
how bout a nice 16 foot nanotube...
and there's the FS-nanotube
and what do you speak of sheep?

nanowool

Dan Lenski said:

Jasper Janssen wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yeah, but carbon nanotubes, man! NANOTUBES!

Kidding aside, it turns out to actually only be .5 mm nanotubes that are
more or less woven together like cotton wool, rather than actual larger
nanotubes. If you could do the same with 1 cm long nanotubes, though, I
have no doubt whatsoever you'd get a stronger material than regular carbon
fiber.

Quoted message said:

Absolutely right. I work with nanotubes every day, and I can tell you
that tubes longer than 1 mm or so cannot be mass-produced at this time.
This definitely limits the strength of nanotube composite materials.

It's just engineering, though, isn't it? Sooner or later we'll figure it
out. When we can make arbitrarily long carbon nanotubes, we can build a
space elevator. When we have a space elevator, we can get rid of spent
nuclear reactor fuel safely and cheaply (not to mention doing nifty things
like asteroid mining economically). When we can do those things, we can
shut down all or most of our earthbased fuel and mining operations, as
well as most heavy industry. And Greenpeace will still be violently
against it.

Whoo, eco-rantage!

Quoted message said:

Another problem is that these materials include, along with all the
carbon nanotubes, a big bunch of amorphous carbon junk which doesn't do
much for strengthening the composite.

The process they describe for making this material seems to pretty much
presuppose a supply of pure carbon nanotubes -- if I get it right, they
have a surface that is filled with the buggers, standing packed like
herrings in a tun, standing room only, and they knock over one part after
that, like dominoes, keeps knocking over the next bit as it's drawn out by
the mechanical feed.

Using 1 mm tubes instead of .5 would already double the strength of the
stuff, I'd imagine, incidentally.

Quoted message said:

But the field is progressing rapidly. I would not be surprised to see
a carbon nanotube composite bike frame 5 years from now...

Just give me a space elevator within my lifetime. I've still got half a
century in me, I would hope, so it should be doable.

Jasper

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

those of you who on the trailing edge
always
disappoint us on the cutting edge
a deray of nanotubes
a nanotube hang glider!
tennis?
how bout a nice 16 foot nanotube...
and there's the FS-nanotube
and what do you speak of sheep?

Lighter, faster, better all. But nanotube construction probably won't
make new forms of bicycle possible. Well, maybe mountain bikes can get a
little funkier.

The real magic for nanotubes is the structures that it suddenly makes
possible. Most notably, the space elevator.

Will upgrade to a nanotube bike when I can,

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

Ryan Cousineau said:

Lighter, faster, better all. But nanotube construction probably won't
make new forms of bicycle possible. Well, maybe mountain bikes can get a
little funkier.

Depends just how strong it is. If it's strong enough for its weight, the
diamond frame might not be optimum any more.

Quoted message said:

The real magic for nanotubes is the structures that it suddenly makes
possible. Most notably, the space elevator.

Well, not so suddenly, but yes. Screw those Sri Lankan monks, I want my AC
Clarke vision.

Jasper