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I was watching America's Cup sailing last week and these boats were all carbon fiber, completely. If there was a material stronger and lighter, even by a few pe
by Maarten88 9y ago
I was watching America's Cup sailing last week and these boats were all carbon fiber, completely.
If there was a material stronger and lighter, even by a few percent, at any price, they'd be using that. They would do just anything to gain an advantage.
- agumonkey 9y agoIf they know about it and have suppliers .. otherwise they'd stick to CF by network effect.
- ajuc 9y agoWell, the material in question degrades badly in contact with water.
- sizzzzlerz 9y agoPulp can move, baby!
- rogmet 9y agoI didn't read the rules for the most recent Cup but previous editions have limited the allowable materials and processing techniques in the rules, setting a limit on fibre modulus to prevent the better funded teams from going all out on eye-wateringly expensive M55J carbon for example. Cure pressures were limited to 1 bar vacuum (atmospheric) to keep the rich guys out of big and expensive autoclaves for their hulls and primary structure. There was a maximum density requirement for the keel bulb material forcing you to use lead rather than platinum, gold or depleted uranium! These (nano? micro? mini?) fibres would likely be used as an additive to the resin, then laminated with everyday carbon - usually the first failure method to occur is resin microcracking which these little guys could helpfully and cheaply delay.