As has been pointed out to me (several times), the original numbers I posted (here, here and here) for the strength of the Carbon nanotube fibers announced during the recent EuroSpaceward event are wrong; the correct number should be ~9 GPa – 9 N/tex. This is still a very significant achievement and if anyone shows up at the upcoming Space Elevator game with a tether this strong, they will blow the house tether completely away.
I will put up a post in the near future about how tether strength is measured and how I went awry. It turns out to be a bit more complicated than I thought (gee, why I am not surprised?)…
However, for the next week or so, and in conjunction with the Photonics West Trade Show which begins tomorrow, I will be doing a series of post on a) some of the Climber teams who are going to be competing this year and b) TRUMPF and DILAS; two vendors who are really stepping up to further the concept of a Space Elevator.
Stay tuned…
(Homer pix from here)
Well done for admitting your error. Its always a very hard thing to do. DeltaX have also made a correction on their web page I notice.
This mistake may not have been made, if an actual paper had been published….
and it is quite easy to get great results from non-standard test conditions, versus a 2m tether. So, although promising, it is most definitely not a forgone conclusion.
I wish them the best of luck!!
Upon further investigation, it appears there was a paper published at the time…well, we all make mistakes from time to time.
It is easy to get excited about future possibilities, but it is imperative we retain scientific skepticism…or no one of import will take this mandate seriously.
I’d like to know what this number 9GPa is exactly, is it the break limit, the elastic limit or any other number? thanks!
Maybe the Young module?
Hello Seb – that’s what I hope my (not to distant) future post will explain. Stay tuned (and thanks for reading)…