Boeing Presents The Lightest Metal Ever

Megalith

Megalith

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Now Boeing just needs to make the strongest metal ever and call it Vibranium.

Microlattice is the lightest metal ever made. At 99.99% air, it's light enough to balance on top of a dandelion, while its structure makes it strong. Strength and record breaking lightness make it a potential metal for future planes and vehicles.
 
After watching the video and reading that wiki article, the uses for this are limited. It's more a fabric, but a thick fabric...like an inch thick. It does not appear to have any rigidity on it's own. It can be compressed, but does not appear to be resistance to compression (pushing). And I didn't see anything about suspension (pulling) properties.

So, yes, it's metal, but it cannot be used in the typical applications that metal can (skin, structural, etc). Which the Boeing promotional video kind of hints that it CAN be used to replace those parts on a plane.
 
westrock2000 said:
After watching the video and reading that wiki article, the uses for this are limited. It's more a fabric, but a thick fabric...like an inch thick. It does not appear to have any rigidity on it's own. It can be compressed, but does not appear to be resistance to compression (pushing). And I didn't see anything about suspension (pulling) properties.

So, yes, it's metal, but it cannot be used in the typical applications that metal can (skin, structural, etc). Which the Boeing promotional video kind of hints that it CAN be used to replace those parts on a plane.
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I'm guessing it must pick up some strength when it's filled with another lightweight material (like a very light rigid foam).
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
yeah, looks like a new brillo pad. who cares?

blah blah blah science, blah blah blah.
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Sarcasm or...?

My point was that this video doesn't really say shit except "Look at this stuff...cool huh? We can use it for non-specific stuff like airplanes with no real examples or explanations how any of this works! BOEING!"
 
They hinted at a few things, bone structure being one hint. Skin the material with something else and you have panels or doors. With some imagination I can come up with several other things that may not work but could be the start of exploring new ideas.
 
Imagination... that's exactly what they want you to do.. run with it. hey look at me... new battery tech that doubles capacity! Quick invest in me!
 
Well, as soon as you say invest I get less enthusiastic. Can I afford to lose my investment, is there a chance of a good return on it, and when will I get that ROI? That's also why I missed out on some buys that would have let me retire long ago.From purely technology driven interest I love it all.
 
BTW, Boeing was my first employer as an engineer and in the early eighties I was working on technology you didn't see for another 20-30 years.
 
Not to pick nits here, but wouldn't that be "adamantium"? Vibranium has other properties...including the ability to amplify kinetic energy.
 
mtrupi said:
They hinted at a few things, bone structure being one hint. Skin the material with something else and you have panels or doors. With some imagination I can come up with several other things that may not work but could be the start of exploring new ideas.
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But it does not appear to have any compression strength. Acts more like a spring. Due to thickness presented, I do not see this being useful as structural....which they hinted at with the wing spars.

Plus I think the "99.99% air" claim is disingenuous. Are they referring to volume of the piece of material? Because it is very plain to see that it is mostly hollow. Like saying a bubble is 99.99% air. The air is not the bubble itself. The air just fills in the void around the material. If you dipped it in water would it still be 99.99% air?
 
westrock2000 said:
But it does not appear to have any compression strength. Acts more like a spring. Due to thickness presented, I do not see this being useful as structural....which they hinted at with the wing spars.

Plus I think the "99.99% air" claim is disingenuous. Are they referring to volume of the piece of material? Because it is very plain to see that it is mostly hollow. Like saying a bubble is 99.99% air. The air is not the bubble itself. The air just fills in the void around the material. If you dipped it in water would it still be 99.99% air?
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Stop making sense, you're ruining their claims.
 
Umm, I am pretty sure lithium is the lightest metal unless Boeing created a new element.
 
I hate it when they mis-use terms that are supposed to mean something precise. They interchangeably used the terms "material", "structure", and "metal". The correct term for what they're talking about in this video is the structure. The speaker specifically mentions at one point that they used a polymer material, which is certainly not "Metal".

So no, they haven't created a new metal and haven't created a new material. They have a new structure that could be useful, much like honeycomb panels were created decades ago. That's really what this is, a modern 3D update to the old honeycomb sandwich panels that are very commonly used in aerospace programs.

One specific benefit to this new structure is that unlike honeycomb, there isn't an inherent vulnerability to trapped water and ice formation which can cause dramatic internal damage from even a small amount of water trapped in an otherwise still structurally sound honeycomb panel. Water expands when frozen, which rips apart honeycomb from the inside, and while the damage can cause 90% or more reduction in strength or stiffness, the damage can be almost completely hidden. This new structure being a completely open lattice could easily prevent internal damage from water intrusion because there are no pockets where the water would be contained, only to freeze in flight when outside air and structure temps drop well below freezing.

It seems kind of dumb that Boeing would officially release such a poorly worded video, mixing terms like that and passing up on the opportunity to show why this is could be such a huge advance over traditional honeycomb structures.
 
westrock2000 said:
So, yes, it's metal, but it cannot be used in the typical applications that metal can (skin, structural, etc). Which the Boeing promotional video kind of hints that it CAN be used to replace those parts on a plane.
Click to expand...

I expect it could be used almost anywhere a traditional honeycomb sandwich is used. Depending on the lattice geometry it may just need to be skinned to gain stiffness.
 
Another consideration is that this may have enormous surface area while permitting airflow through it, which could make it a good option for a catalyst bed or a thermal transfer layer in a heat sink.
 
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