Re:Super-Strong Graphene Has an Achilles' Heel
by stcredzero on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @12:59PM
(#7674588)
The ductility of metal has been a tremendous boon to fabrication of large machines. If parts don't quite fit, they deform to fit. This caused problems when carbon fiber started to be used to build large airplanes. Those parts don't bend and retained the internal stresses caused by mismatches. I read this happened to Boeing.
Glass and ceramics are harder than steel. The reason that glass is fragile, is that one can use its own strength against itself. The material itself acts as a lever to concentrate enormous stresses at the tips of fractures. This doesn't work nearly as well when materials are ductile.
Disclaimer: not a materials guy.
Anyone familiar with carbon fibre will know how some people are scared of it breaking in a catastrophic failure, as in it gets a scratch and then, under load, it breaks completely. In reality this is not much of a problem, however, this failure is very different to what you can expect from other materials such as steel and aluminium. I look forward to the 'high graphene content steel', which should be a perfect material for handy things like making tanks.