Southampton scientist develops strongest, lightest glass nanofibres in the world
The
University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) is pioneering
research into developing the strongest silica nanofibres in the world. Globally
the quest has been on to find ultrahigh strength composites, leading ORC
scientists to investigate light, ultrahigh strength nanowires that are not
compromised by defects. Historically, carbon nanotubes were the strongest
material available, but high strengths could only be measured in very short
samples just a few microns long, providing little practical value.
Now
research by ORC Principal Research Fellow Dr Gilberto Brambilla and ORC
Director Professor Sir David Payne has resulted in the creation of the
strongest, lightest weight silica nanofibres -- 'nanowires' that are 15 times
stronger than steel and can be manufactured in lengths potentially of 1000's of
kilometres.
Their
findings are already generating extensive interest from many companies around
the world and could be set to transform the aviation, marine and safety
industries. Tests are currently being carried out globally into the potential
future applications for the nanowires.
"With
synthetic fibres it is important to have high strength, achieved by production
of fibre with extremely low defect rates, and low weight," says Dr
Brambilla.
"Usually
if you increase the strength of a fibre you have to increase its diameter and
thus its weight, but our research has shown that as you decrease the size of
silica nanofibres their strength increases, yet they still remain very
lightweight. We are the only people who currently have optimised the strength
of these fibres.
"Our
discovery could change the future of composites and high strength materials
across the world and have a huge impact on the marine, aviation and security
industries. We want to investigate their potential use in composites and we
envisage that this material could be used extensively in the manufacture of
products such as aircraft, speedboats and helicopters," he adds.
Professor
Payne explains: "Weight for weight, silica nanowires are 15 times stronger
than high strength steel and 10 times stronger than conventional GRP (Glass
Reinforced Plastic). We can decrease the amount of material used thereby
reducing the weight of the object.
"Silica
and oxygen, required to produce nanowires, are the two most common elements on
the Earth's crust, making it sustainable and cheap to exploit. Furthermore, we
can produce silica nanofibres by the tonne, just as we currently do for the
optical fibres that power the internet."
The
research findings came about following five years of investigations by Dr
Brambilla and Professor Payne using Gilberto's £500,000 Fellowship funding from
the Royal Society.
Dr
Brambilla shared his findings with fellow researchers at a special seminar he
organised recently at the Kavli Royal Society International Centre, at
Chicheley Hall, in Buckinghamshire.
"It
was particularly challenging dealing with fibres that were so small. They are
nearly 1,000 times smaller than a human hair and I was handling them with my
bare hands," says Dr Brambilla.
"It
took me some time to get used to it, but using the state-of-the-art facilities
at the ORC I was able to discover that silica nanofibres become stronger the
smaller they get. In fact when they become very, very small they behave in a
completely different way. They stop being fragile and don't break like glass
but instead become ductile and break like plastic. This means they can be
strained a lot.
"Up
until now most of our research has been into the science of nanowires but in
the future we are particularly interested in investigating the technology and
applications of these fibres," adds Dr Brambilla.
To find out more about the ORC's work on silica nanowires,
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Posted by Unknown
on Friday, January 11, 2013.
Filed under
Computer And Math
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