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What's the strongest material available?


gribbon

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I mean as in like a meatl would be....so it can't be bent easily...I don't know what the scientific term for that is.....Titanium isn't strong though, or at least not in size to strength ratio....

 

You'd probable be talking stress/strain or tensile strength. There are lots of different ways to test materials.

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It is called a strain gauge. Strain gauges are used to measure how far a material bends out of position. You can measure how much force it takes to bend the material with all kinds of force measuring instruments and then do a simple division of the force by the amount of strain measured and you have a ratio.

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The links just send me round in circles....there doesn't seem to be a way of measuring the ability of the material to resist being bent...it's not the same as what would snap it if it were made into a wire.....

I think what you're looking for is "rigidity".

 

From the Wictionary:

rigid (comparative more rigid, superlative most rigid)

1. stiff rather than flexible

2. fixed rather than moving

3. rigorous and unbending

4. uncompromising

 

Related terms: rigidity

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Each configuration will lend different results.

 

The width of a wire for example will determine some of it's characteristics. Is it in block form or in the form of an i-beam. These are structural limitations of the material. They do not tell us much about the material until we compare two identical structures made out of two different materials. Then we have a comparitive view of the material to state which is stronger for this structural use.

 

In discussing strength of materials one must be clear as to what kind of strength one is looking for. Is maleability a strength in your mind? Then I would say gold one of the strongest. If you think that cutting other materials is a strength, then I'd say diamond chips are strong, but raw diamond isn't that strong.

 

You must give parameters for discussion.

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as far as I know I’m pretty sure the strongest is carbon nanotubes. they are bonded into strings at the molecular level and were viewed as a way to build the space elevator ( Space elevator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) they cant be compressed by anything besides maybe a star they don’t pull apart except in extreme circumstances and they are light weight.

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