A New Age of Materials Is Dawning, for Everything from Smartphones to Missiles

[hoppyhoppy2]

https://archive.ph/caK9m

[ranger_danger]

mitmflared

[throwup238]

> While composites might seem like a futuristic technology, in many ways, they hark back to millions of years of human and even pre-human material technology. Wood, after all, is the original composite material, as it’s composed of long and short fibers glued together by other substances—much like modern synthetic composites are often made up of carbon fiber held together by epoxy resins. Wood was a chief enabler of the success of our species, and it exhibits many of the advantages and disadvantages of composites.

Not to nitpick too much, but while wood is "technically" a composite material made up of fiber embedded in lignin, I don't think it's very useful to include it under the broad category of composite materials. Engineered woods like plywood and cross-laminated timber definitely are, but it's more useful to classify regular wood as an organic raw material rather than a composite.

The first composite material humans had any experience with was probably silcrete. It's naturally occurring but ancient humans figured out how to strengthen it by heat treating it in a fire (80-160 kYa). The first time humans intentionally made a composite material is adobe/mudbrick (11 kYa), wattle and daub (6 kYa), plywood in Mesopotamia (5.4 kYa), cob (4 kYa), and finally Romans developed something resembling concrete (I dont remember kYa).

[dreamcompiler]

Wood was a chief enabler of the success of our species

Wood was the chief enabler of trees. Trees have to be big, strong, lightweight, and bendable. Homogeneous materials won't work for that application. You need a composite. So evolution invented one.

Even more amazing: Trees 3D print themselves out of carbon dioxide.

[slabity]

> Not to nitpick too much, but while wood is "technically" a composite material made up of fiber embedded in lignin, I don't think it's very useful to include it under the broad category of composite materials. Engineered woods like plywood and cross-laminated timber definitely are, but it's more useful to classify regular wood as an organic raw material rather than a composite.

Why would defining it as a raw material be "more useful"? Why is defining it as a composite "less useful"?

[2four2]

I disagree. In advanced materials, we analyze materials categorically. In this instance, the way we would calculate the structure of wood is based on its isotropy, or more simply, its symmetry of strength and stiffness. The way wood behaves anisotropically means its structure is calculated the same way as most other composites. Composite Laminate Theory is the primary way that structure behavior is calculated for both wood laminates and carbon fiber laminates. We squarely categorize it in the same bin as carbon fiber, but that's just one perspective from one discipline, so take it as you will.

[andrewflnr]

I don't know how I escaped learning about silcrete so far, being interested in both geology and primitive technology. Thanks for the tip! For anyone that curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silcrete

[AYBABTME]

I think it's actually very fair to count wood as a composite. Composite is the concept, and wood happens to be a natural occurrence of the concept. Keeping it qualified as a composite also helps expand the mind: composites don't need to manufactured how we're typically manufacturing it in the present. When you think of wood as a composite, it's an opportunity for ah-ha moments in students.

[marcus_holmes]

> and finally Romans developed something resembling concrete (I dont remember kYa).

About 2 kYa, give or take a couple of centuries.

And it was actual concrete, rather than something resembling concrete. In fact, better than the concrete we were making a hundred years ago, and better than most of our concrete fifty years ago.

Roman aqueducts and bridges are still standing 2000 years later. Not sure I'd put money on the same being true of our stuff.

[aardvarkr]

I think they’re just trying to make composite more relatable to the Everyman without actually understanding it themselves. At least they’re trying.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Kinda feels like you're missing the point of the quoted sentence. That is, it's not that wood is actually a composite material as we define it now, but that wood has the characteristics of a composite, i.e. different substances intertwined in a way to give better properties than any individual material alone, and going with the theme of the article, this is a direct contrast to materials like steel or plastic.

[aranchelk]

Nitpick time:

> Modern composites, starting with Bakelite

AFAIK Bakelite is a resin, not a composite.

No mention of fiberglass, which had been used for many decades before carbon fiber went into widespread use.

> composites—which are amalgamations of a variety of fibers, embedded in a variety of plastics

Steel reinforced concrete is a composite and doesn’t fit this definition.

[nyanpasu64]

I looked it up on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite) which said:

> Because molded Bakelite incorporated fillers to give it strength, it tended to be made in concealing dark colors.[9]

[bboygravity]

Straw, sticks and mud composite walls. From before Mr. Christ was born.

[tlb]

Most Bakelite products were a molded combination of resin and sawdust. Though there were also pure resin products.

[hyperbolablabla]

Also swear Bakelite is older than my grandpa, not sure it's exactly "modern"

[maxglute]

One of my biggest everyday QoL upgrade is men's casual pants finally getting elastane.

E: not just elastane but performance fabrics from athleisure in general, good moisture/odour/temperature control, easy to maintain etc. Some people like break in into their cotton/denim classics, but performance fabrics tend to not need break in in at all.

[weightedreply]

I'm glad there's more choice but I wish my favorite Levi's still had a 100% cotton option. After years of easy jean shopping I now have to find another brand.

[lancebeet]

Interesting that you should say that, because I'm of the exact opposite opinion. In fact, the omnipresence of elastane in pants has been a big QoL downgrade for me.

[thr33]

complete disaster. terrible for your skin, feels gross, falls apart, and cannot be repaired. meanwhile my cotton pants that have been repaired many times are still treasured wardrobe items almost 10 years on.

[TacticalCoder]

> One of my biggest everyday QoL upgrade is men's casual pants finally getting elastane.

I don't know if it's elastane but I've definitely seen QoL improvements in clothing compared to 35 years ago (back when I was a teenagers).

Underwear are soooo soft. And they fit perfectly. Same for t-shirts. Same for socks.

I don't know what makes some clothes so comfy (and requiring no ironing either btw) but there's "something" that makes lots of clothes simply better nowadays.

And they last too: I'm the kind of person who hates shopping (which drives my wife mad) so when I find something I like, I'll buy three or five of them (which drives my wife even madder). I've got some pieces I have since years and years (that one is nearly divorce reason ;) Sometimes I find a five years old picture and think: "Oh I already had that thing back then!?".

Yeah, many clothes are just simply better now.

[frithsun]

A swing and a miss. The future of materials is going back to plant fiber; wood, hemp, etc. There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications; but our world has been made out of plastic for generations now and updated, improved plant fiber materials will replace it as the affordable, more sustainable, and equally functional alternative.

[lukan]

"There will be plenty of fancy composite materials for specialty applications"

There are a lot of "specialty applications" I think, where plant based material is not ideal. Otherwise I agree.

[AYBABTME]

Why? Can you name a few example current alternatives and upcoming contenders?

Are we talking far-tech where plants and other biome actors are engineered to produce materials in a particular shape and manner?

[dzhiurgis]

When?

[inasio]

It's been amazing to see how it's affected sailing and other water sports over the past 2-3 of decades. Cuben fiber sails, Carbon-fiber hulls, hydrofoils on everything; something happened and then inflatable paddle boards were everywhere.

[throwaway920102]

Not a single mention in the article of their biggest downside, environmental costs.

[karmakurtisaani]

I would have been interested in the recycling aspect of these materials. We already struggle with plastic and PFAS, should this not be discussed before there's another problem?

[__MatrixMan__]

There are many ways to be environmentally costly... Can you be more specific?

[eropple]

Interesting article, if on the advertising side of things. I've done some hobby work with some basic composites and they're really neat to play with. Even so, I itch at the idea of bolts made out of composites; there are plastics and resins that don't creep under some conditions, but I wonder if the space magic they're describing actually...works.

[ghaff]

As a hiker/outdoors person, materials evolution has been a fantastic improvement in so many ways. Even lightweight traveling.

[solardev]

Probably not great for the environment though, with plastic microfibers washing into our oceans and DWR coatings being toxic and leaching into waterways.

Compared to, say, what they climbed Everest with originally, yeah, our gear today is lighter, cheaper, more effective, but also more environmentally impactful and much less degradable.

It's all just byproducts of the oil industry. We're a lot more comfortable now, but it didn't come free.

[dyauspitr]

Yep, you can now go camping with your gear being under 10 lbs. Your tent and sleeping bag together can be under 3lbs.

[hoseja]

I'm sure we'll be so excited to eventually find out what exactly all that teflon in goretex does to our healthy outdoorsy bodies.

[evolve2k]

To write this whole article and not even mention circular production practices (eg full lifestyle resource management) and our resource constrained planetary context seems arrogant and stupid and undermines any heady excitement for this “progression”. What a junk article.

[1024core]

> All of that is possible because composites, while they have their challenges, are often able to perform just as well as high-strength metal parts, but with a fraction of the weight.

That's what Rush (who perished in the Titan submersible) also thought....

[shiroiushi]

The problem here is that the OP's statement is correct, if you qualify it more: if the composite material is appropriate for the application, and properly designed for it, it can perform just as well. If the composite material is a stupid choice for the application for various reasons, and being touted by a guy who thinks safety standards are dumb, then you get OceanGate.

Still, you have a good point: in engineering (and especially safety-critical projects), you can't just throw some composite material in there willy-nilly and expect it to work out great. OceanGate was a great example of some really stupid and reckless engineering.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Hence the inclusion of the word "often" in the original sentence. There are many different types of strength - just from the get-go using carbon fiber in a sub is insane because (even ignoring the interface problem with different materials) carbon fiber is known for its strength in tension, not so much its strength in compression.

[talldayo]

To give the steel industry it's fair shake, the Titanic was also claimed to be "unsinkable".

[kart23]

Why aren't more regular cars made of carbon fiber? Especially with EVs needing to be as efficient as possible.

The BMW i3 had a carbon fiber frame and was still reasonably priced back in 2013, yet no other normal cars seem to have went this way.

[daviddumenil]

In the case of the BMW i3, European legislation was introduced that made manufacturers accountable for the recyclability of their cars.

Something the article completely sidesteps when talking about metals versus composites :-)

Cost versus steel may well have been a factor as well.

[fkarg]

from what I understand it's because it's a lot more expensive than its alternatives.

Like yes, for a bunch of structures you can neatly automate it (see most rocket production), but the shapes of (current) cars don't easily offer themselves to similar options. Automation is possible but would probably be finicky and require a lot of space and energy (for the heating).

but someone else please jump in if you know better/more.

[floxy]

Here's to hoping that Aptera becomes a regular car someday.

https://aptera.us/cpc-group-agreement/

[tpm]

Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to invest heavily into saving 100kg on the frame and then adding a 500kg battery. The i3 had a small, lighter battery and an extender.

[banish-m4]

So there are modern efforts to replace LP compressor blades of LM1500's (industrial conversions of J79's) to save weight and improve efficiency. Carbon fiber blades weigh a fraction of what metal ones do. Also, with computational fluid dynamics, new blade designs can be evolved and optimized for a specific power-band. For static applications, the risks of using more delicate materials can be tolerable if the efficiency in ROI exceeds service costs. There's a YT channel in Canada covering this development.

[kazinator]

> lighter, stronger composites

Next-to-fucking-impossible-to-recycle composites.

[Anotheroneagain]

Were the soviets that far ahead? Because the T3 trams from the 60s were already made of composites.

[tpm]

You mean the Czechs. They also created the cloth/vinyl-clad microcars, the Velorex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velorex

[jillesvangurp]

Parts of the DDR era Trabant cars were also made out of composites.

[joshu]

i met orbital composites at reindustrialize. they seemed to know their shit; i was very impressed.

[fifteen1506]

[paywall]

[hoppyhoppy2]

A link to get around the paywall had already been posted.

[pjc50]

It's always fun to read an article like this, spot the "this is a press release" tone, and then spot which company had it placed in the WSJ. Along with a quote from the CEO. It's basically free advertising.

[signatoremo]

Which company? There are mentions of at least 3 companies, with at least 2 CEOs quoted

[cal85]

Are you going to tell us who?