What is the strongest known material?
The answer to this question depends on how you define the "strong" but most difficult or least compressible known material such as this writing (December 2007) are aggregated diamond nanorods (ADNR), allotrop (variety) of carbon consisting of highly compressed and interconnected nanotures. Aggregated diamond nanorods have a mass module or a hardness rate of 491 Gigapascals (GPA), while a conventional diamond has only a 442 GPA module. Aggregated diamond nanorods can scratch both diamond and ultrahard fullrite, another allotrop carbon, which was the previous holder of the hardness record. The team, led by Natalia Dubrovinskaia, used an anvil consisting of conventional fullerenes (also known as Bubbyballs, element C60) on the pattern of anvil for 5,000 metric tonnes (5 million kilograms). By compressing these buckyballs and their heating to 2500 degrees, it was possible to create this new allotrop carbon. The material consists of carbon nanotubes with a diameter between 5 and 20 nanometers and a length of about a micrometer lengthU.
The physical appearance of aggregated diamond nanorods is similar to the appearance of metal, which distracts different colors of light, giving it a slightly rainbow surface. The fact that the metal seems unusual because other allocated carbon allotroples (soot, graphite, diamond, etc.) rarely, with the exception of possible graphite.
Aggregated diamond nanorods are also denser than a diamond factor of 0.2 - 0.4%, making them the worst form of carbon. The contributing factor to the hardness of the material is considered to be the random orientation of the nanorods that create it. Because the physical structure of nanorods is a fine net like Kevlar®, the material is also broken, unlike a diamond.
Testing has shown that the use of aggregated diamond nanorods of high -end machine steel tools gives a tool that wear more slowly than a diamond and allows higher accuracy. When it becomes economically feasible for the mass forDiamonds of aggregated diamond nanorods can actually replace diamonds as industrial abrasive and material for description.