What are they?
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What are they?
Luckily I have not eaten something before I read this ...
Boron fibers are five times as strong and twice as stiff as steel. They are made by a chemical vapor deposition process in which boron vapors are deposited onto a fine tungsten or carbon filament. Boron provides strength, stiffness and light weight, and possesses excellent compressive properties and buckling resistance. Uses for boron composites range from sporting goods, such as fishing rods, golf club shafts, skis and bicycle frames, to aerospace applications as varied as aircraft empennage skins, truss members and prefabricated aircraft repair patches.
Boron fibers (boron filaments) are high-strength, lightweight materials that are used chiefly for advanced aerospace structures as a component of composite materials, as well as limited production consumer and sporting goods such as golf clubs and fishing rods. The fibers can be produced by chemical vapor deposition of boron on a tungsten filament.
Boron fibers and sub-millimeter sized crystalline boron springs are produced by laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition. Translation of the focused laser beam allows to produce even complex helical structures. Such structures show good mechanical properties (elastic modulus 450 GPa, fracture strain 3.7%, fracture stress 17 GPa) and can be applied as reinforcement of ceramics or in micromechanical systems.
http://composite.about.com/library/weekly/aa980323.htm
André, have you compared results with Young's Modulus between the 2 materials? What are your findings?