Super-lightweight Robot Friendly Modular Construction for Bridges and Space Colonization

NASA Ames team created and tested prefabricated voxels standardized reconfigurable building blocks. They built a set of 256 of those blocks—extremely strong 3D structures made with a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer called StattechNN-40CF. Each block had fastening interfaces on every side that could be used to reversibly attach them to other blocks and form a strong truss …

Read more

Zuckerberg is Making a Bunker But Bomb Resistant UHPC Buildings Could Become Common

Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an enhanced fibrous and cementitious concrete with high compressive strength (120–250 MPa) particle packing density (0.825–0.855, tensile strength (15–20 MPa) and extraordinary durability. UHPC has 300 times the ductility and energy absorption of high performance concrete (HPC) and three to sixteen times the compressive strength of regular concrete. A $100+ …

Read more

Taiwan’s Underground Bases Are Better Than Hamas Tunnels

Taiwan has one hundred times the area of Gaza. Over 13976 square miles versus 140 square miles. Taiwan has at least two hollowed-out mountains. They are to place hundreds of airplanes and thousands of missiles in those underground facilities. They have tunnels connecting military and government facilities throughout the island. Imagine Gaza 100 times bigger …

Read more

Amorphous Silicon Carbide is Ten Times Stronger Than Kevlar and Great to Microchips

Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by assistant professor Richard Norte, have unveiled a remarkable new material with potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical properties crucial for vibration isolation on a microchip. Amorphous silicon carbide is therefore particularly suitable for …

Read more

SpaceX Stainless Steel Super Heavy Starship Also Bulletproof ?

The SpaceX Super Heavy Starship is made from stainless steel just like the new Tesla Cybertruck. The Tesla Cybertruck has a cold rolled process that converts the stainless steel to corrosion resistant Martensitic steel. The Tesla Cybertruck will be mass produced with 250,000 to a million units per year. The conversion of the austenitic stainless …

Read more

AI Guides ORNL to Make Breakthrough Materials Near Ultimate Physical Limits

Guided by machine learning, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a record-setting carbonaceous supercapacitor material that stores four times more energy than the best commercial material. A supercapacitor made with the new material could store more energy — improving regenerative brakes, power electronics and auxiliary power supplies. This research has …

Read more

Unlimited Power and Nearly Unlimited Batteries

CATL of China is mass producing generation one sodium ion batteries starting next month. The first factory has about a 40 GWH per year capacity. China has 16 out of 20 globally planned or built sodium battery factories according to Benchmark Minerals. CATL’s first-generation sodium battery generates 160-watt-hours per kilogram. This is 10% less energy …

Read more

Technology Breakthrough Enables Antiferromagnets to Be Used for Computer Memory

Being able to use antiferromagnets will make computer memory that is more energy efficient and smaller, faster with less corruption issues. Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have discovered a new way of reading data in antiferromagnets. There were no practical methods to read data from antiferromagnets. Computer memory traditionally comprises silicon …

Read more

Korean Silicon Lithium Battery Anode Research Progress

Researchers from POSTECH and Sogang University developed a functional polymeric binder for stable, high-capacity anode material that could increase the current EV range at least 10-fold over current graphite anode electric car battery range. There is already commercial use of electric cars with 3-8% silicon anode by weight with out 10-30% range increases. There are …

Read more

NASA Funds Metal Production on the Moon

Seven university teams were selected to develop concepts supporting metal production on the Moon in NASA’s 2023 annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge: Lunar Forge. The awards total about $1.1 million, with values between $120,000 and $180,000 based on each team’s proposed concept. The challenge is a unique collaboration between NASA’s Space Technology …

Read more