Cambridge devices lightweight but super-strong carbon fibre

31 Oct '07

3 min read

University of Cambridge can proudly boast of developing a new type of carbon fibre that could be woven into super-strong body armour for the military and law enforcement. A group at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy here innovated this who were engaged in creating world's strongest man-made fibre.

According to the research workers involved in this innovation the material is several times strong, tough, firm and good at absorbing energy in the form of fragments travelling at very high velocity compared to fibres that are currently used to manufacture protective armours.

The lightweight fibre, is made up of millions of tiny carbon nanotubes, constituting hollow cylinders of carbon which are just one atom thick.

According to Professor Alan Windle, these nanotube fibres possess special features which enable them to be woven as a cloth, or incorporated into composite materials to produce super-strong products. The fibre is at par with the existing high performance fibres such as Kevlar. He also added that few characteristics in this fibre are much better than even Kevlar in all respects.

For body armour, the strength of fibres in a fabric is a critical parameter. Strain-to-failure - in other words how much the material can extend before it breaks - is another.

The work at Cambridge has already attracted interest from the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Army. However, this new material could also find applications in the area of hi-tech 'smart' clothing, bomb-proof refuse bins, flexible solar panels, and, eventually, as a replacement for copper wire in transmitting electrical power and signals.

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