New Amazing Fantastic Material

[upchurchmr]

A new fiber made from volcanic rock has made all the typical fantastic claims.
Of course, there are no actual physical properties offered.

"Virgin" fiber strength equal to carbon fiber. What does virgin mean?
The strength is equal to carbon fiber (claim) - but what fiber?
The elasticity or youngs modulus is greater than glass - but that's significantly lower than carbon, I guess.
The density is higher than carbon which means it's strength to weight is lower.
Better resistance at high and low temperatures that glass or carbon - resistance to what?
Lower price/ kilo - but what is it? 5% less? 1%less? Since the density is greater do you actually get less material?

Also some good claims:
Impact resistance equal to aramid
High thermal, electrical and acoustical insulation properties - compared to what?

And of course they are building a boat that is the best in the world.
Well I was going to give a link, but it is gone from Yahoo.
The manufacturer: Our products https://www.isomatex.com/categorie/our-products.html

Anyone have real information rather than advertisement?

Sorry for being negative, but 35 years of looking for new materials only to find that the announcements are carefully crafted to cover up problems makes me suspicious.
If it really was so good they would have no reason not to provide the actual properties and comparisons.

 

[wet feet]

Until we see an actual component undergoing some form of testing it does look a bit nebulous,doesn't it?

 

[JSL]

maybe it is treated wood from old growth(virgin) forests.

 

[ondarvr]

Basalt fibers with a new marketing scheme????

 

[Squidly-Diddly]

its ASBESTOS!
https://www.isomatex.com/medias/our-products/MSDS Filava BSB EN vers 2017.pdf
and if not, same difference. No one ever got sick breathing asbestos for the first few years.
General advice:Immediate medical attention is not required.Inhalation:Generally not applicable. Only if necessary, move to fresh air. If

Remember how they tried to rebrand Eucalyptus as "Tasmanian Oak" for deck lumber after some new taming process was invented, because of how the first release of Euc lumber was such as disaster? Unlike most wood that warps once or twice then sorta calms down for the next few hundred years, "Tasmanian Oak" will keep twisting, and re-twisting, until the entire house is a pile of sticks on the ground, as if the famous "Tazmanian devil" of looney tunes came through. People were building decks at vacation homes, returning next year and filing police reports for Vandalism, and sometimes Witchcraft or Sasquatch lol.

PS-you know all these Bat Virus masks? Now they are saying they will cause cancer both from the weird fibers and from incubating your own germs or something. I vaguely remember same warnings about not wearing dust masks when you don't need to, because of germ bounce back.

 

[Mr Efficiency]

Squiddly, I can tell you there is a huge variation between the many different species within the eucalyptus genus, as to physical properties, rot and insect resistance. The ones being foisted upon people these days are typically not the best ones, just the ones best suited to plantation forestry. Some of the "ironbark" species are incredibly durable, and a post sitting in the ground for 100 years can still be good. Others will rot in a short time, others subject to borers etc. Spotted Gum has great physical characteristics, but it is only with modern preservative treatments, that it has found extensive use in building. I had an old uncle in the sawmilling game, and he could recite the pros and cons of every species of timber likely to be found in his area of operation, and he pointed out that the early settlers worked out fairly quickly what was best and for what purpose, and what is left these days in old growth forests, is largely the stuff that was not top shelf, and passed over.

 

[Squidly-Diddly]

Squiddly, I can tell you there is a huge variation between the many different species within the eucalyptus genus, as to physical properties, rot and insect resistance. The ones being foisted upon people these days are typically not the best ones, just the ones best suited to plantation forestry. Some of the "ironbark" species are incredibly durable, and a post sitting in the ground for 100 years can still be good. Others will rot in a short time, others subject to borers etc. Spotted Gum has great physical characteristics, but it is only with modern preservative treatments, that it has found extensive use in building. I had an old uncle in the sawmilling game, and he could recite the pros and cons of every species of timber likely to be found in his area of operation, and he pointed out that the early settlers worked out fairly quickly what was best and for what purpose, and what is left these days in old growth forests, is largely the stuff that was not top shelf, and passed over.

Interesting, they also called it "Sun Wood" with a cheap looking red stain, also bad warping and re-warping.
What "modern preservative treatments"? epoxy infusion or something more cost effective? Hot tar?
Company I worked for was building a Euc Plantation in Brazil, for paper mill.
We got lots of various transplanted Euc here is SF Bay Area. Makes great sling shots with nice "Y" and good for tree-forts. Toxic to fleas and very few random insects in, on or around a stand of Eucs, so a very popular tree for back yards if you like to do lots of outdoor entertaining....until the trees get 100ft tall suddenly and start dropping bark and leaves like mad. We also got Euc Oil based non-Deet bug repellent that amazingly enough actually seems to work on mosquitos around here.

 

[Mr Efficiency]

The treatment leaves a greenish stain, probably copper-based. Spotted Gum was long used for axe and tool handles, you could either buy American Hickory, or the Spotted Gum, the latter somewhat cheaper, and probably heavier.

 

[upchurchmr]

Found the superboat article: Boat of the Week: Built From Volcanic Lava, This Sailing Yacht Was Designed for the World’s Toughest Voyage https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/lava-sailing-yacht-worlds-toughest-voyage-1234595841/

Doesn't look like any of you know of this stuff and haven't read the provided link.

 

[KeithO]

Basalt fiber - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt_fiber
From the wiki article, perhaps slightly better properties than e-glass. But given that they are essentially melting rock, one wonders about the potential impact of impurities. But no doubt they are marketing it for a price between e-glass and carbon. They accomplish safety through a relatively large fiber diameter (9-11um), the question is whether in working it one can produce dust that may have a more dangerous morphology. Especially if the fibers have an inclination to split ?

I'm very familiar with how the EU handles the safety aspect because historically in the automotive sector we were at one time almost exclusively using RCF fibers (alumina silicate) and the way those fibers are produced one has a very wide distribution of fiber diameter which includes the dangerous whiskers at one and and shot (sand particles) at the other end. Back in the early 2000s the concern over the potentially carcinogenic properties of the RCF fibers resulted in a move to solgel style fibers that were considerably more expensive but had a much narrower fiber diameter distribution. Thus breathable fibers were essentially eliminated. Interesting enough, the consequence was that the "safe" fibers tended to be far more irritating to the skin and nose so had major repercussions for manufacturing processes. In addition, to get the best high temperature properties the solgel materials tended to be calcined at high temperature which made them even more irritating but light years ahead in mechanical performance at elevated temperature (exhaust products, catalytic converter support mats and insulation).

In the US the emphasis has historically been on bio-persistence of the fibers in lung fluid. The high% alumina fibers are very durable (desired for long term service) and based on fiber diameter cannot get into the lung in the first place. Because of the reduced bio-persistence of cheap RCF fibers, no-one seems to care whether they are breathable in the US. I guess the RCF faction hired better lobbyists...

You will note that S-glass has better properties and is widely available.

 

[ondarvr]

Found the superboat article: Boat of the Week: Built From Volcanic Lava, This Sailing Yacht Was Designed for the World’s Toughest Voyage https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/lava-sailing-yacht-worlds-toughest-voyage-1234595841/

Doesn't look like any of you know of this stuff and haven't read the provided link.

The MSDS says Basalt Fiber. A new name for an old product, change the name and reintroduce it for a fresh start.

 

[upchurchmr]

Thanks for pointing out Basalt = Filava. I missed that.
My snarky comment was about wood fibers mentioned.

 

[rwatson]

As a contribution on the actual usage of these properties, I just recently found this very revealing presentation about how Composites are used in boat design projects.
It had a lot of points that were new to me, for sure.

 

[ondarvr]

That was interesting.

 

[kach22i]

While on the topic of potentially fantastic new materials, here is one that absorbs a lot of vibration - good for car seats and I'm thinking in stereo equipment although I haven't found anyone using it in that industry just yet. Car seats for McLaren, body parts for Porsche, snowboards, surfboards, bicycle frames, and so forth. Can boat hulls and hovercraft applications be far behind?

Home website:
Sustainable Lightweighting for High Performance - Bcomp https://www.bcomp.ch/

Bcomp articles:
Bcomp Ltd. https://www.compositesworld.com/suppliers/bcompltd

McLaren F1 Spins Flax into Racing Gold
McLaren F1 Spins Flax into Racing Gold https://www.designnews.com/materials/mclaren-f1-spins-flax-racing-gold

Flax is 9 percent lighter than carbon fiber and has five times the vibration absorption characteristics. Today’s F1 rules budget 176 lbs. (80 kg.) for the driver and seat, so any amount below that amount for the combination can use strategically placed as ballast elsewhere in the car. Meanwhile, the flax soaks up vibration 250 percent better than carbon, improving driver comfort and potentially aiding their focus on driving.

I'm kind of confused on the 5 X's verses 250% figures above, so maybe someone better at math and reading can sort it out for me.

Article I first found this product in, see below.

McLaren, Bcomp use natural composite fibers in F1 racing seat
The flax fibers meet strength and stiffness requirements while reducing vibration, cost, enhancing safety and lowering its CO2 footprint by 75%.
McLaren, Bcomp use natural composite fibers in F1 racing seat https://www.compositesworld.com/news/mclaren-bcomp-uses-natural-composite-fibers-in-f1-racing-seat

Chart:
Sports - Bcomp https://www.bcomp.ch/solutions/sports/
https://www.bcomp.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Vibration-damping-sports-copyright.svg