Earlier quoted context omitted.
Papier-mache, to be exact. ;)
Afaik it wasn't paper mache, it was made of cotton fiber and used some kind of resin as a binding agent. Paper uses wood pulp.
Wood pulp and cotton fiber aren’t that different, are they?
A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
81–90 of 135 posts
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#82A swing and a miss. The future of materials is going back to plant fiber; wood, hemp, etc. There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications; but our world has been made out of plastic for generations now and updated, improved plant fiber materials will replace it as the affordable, more sustainable, and equally functional alternative.
"There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications"
There are a lot of "specialty applications" I think, where plant based material is not ideal. Otherwise I agree.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#83> While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of…
> and finally Romans developed something resembling concrete (I dont remember kYa).
About 2 kYa, give or take a couple of centuries.
And it was actual concrete, rather than something resembling concrete. In fact, better than the concrete we were making a hundred years ago, and better than most of our concrete fifty years ago.
Roman aqueducts and bridges are still standing 2000 years later. Not sure I'd put money on the same being true of our stuff.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#84[paywall]
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Afaik it wasn't paper mache, it was made of cotton fiber and used some kind of resin as a binding agent. Paper uses wood pulp.
Wood pulp and cotton fiber aren’t that different, are they?
They are? Generally fiber length determines how tough a given composite will be. There's a reason why clothes are made out of cotton fiber not wood.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parts of the DDR era Trabant cars were also made out of composites.
In the eastern block we used to call it eastern BMW - Bakelite Motor Vehicle (although bakelite wasn't exactly the composite used as it seems). Or that repair set for it comprised of just carpet tape. It didn't have that great reputation, at least not in 80s.
I think the Trabant was just fine when you compare it to the cars designed in its era - the 50s and 60s, I think it stands up to the Bug pretty well, its just they didn't bother updating the design for decades, and by the 80s, it looked like a relic out of time.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#87A swing and a miss. The future of materials is going back to plant fiber; wood, hemp, etc. There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications; but our world has been made out of plastic for generations now and updated, improved plant fiber materials will replace it as the affordable, more sustainable, and equally functional alternative.
Why? Can you name a few example current alternatives and upcoming contenders?
Are we talking far-tech where plants and other biome actors are engineered to produce materials in a particular shape and manner?
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#88> While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of…
I think it's actually very fair to count wood as a composite. Composite is the concept, and wood happens to be a natural occurrence of the concept. Keeping it qualified as a composite also helps expand the mind: composites don't need to manufactured how we're typically manufacturing it in the present. When you think of wood as a composite, it's an opportunity for ah-ha moments in students.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#89A swing and a miss. The future of materials is going back to plant fiber; wood, hemp, etc. There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications; but our world has been made out of plastic for generations now and updated, improved plant fiber materials will replace it as the affordable, more sustainable, and equally functional alternative.
Why? Can you name a few example current alternatives and upcoming contenders? Are we talking far-tech where plants and other biome actors are engineered to produce materials in a particular shape and manner?
Bamboo is one material that has seen some traction in replacing plastic, especially in kid food items etc. however they do break easier. Hemp is also finally starting to have a real comeback but still has a lot of roadblocks ahead because of almost a decade of “bad press”.
Re: A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles
#90It's always fun to read an article like this, spot the "this is a press release" tone, and then spot which company had it placed in the WSJ. Along with a quote from the CEO. It's basically free advertising.
Are you going to tell us who?
Probably Orbital composites. The image at the top is from them.