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[Azkanan]

Hi all! Long time no see!

Long story short I'm now a trainee Civil Engineer and I seem to be making waves at my company, as they're funding me through College. I need to make a big splash with the highest grades.

I've downloaded, printed and am currently going through the subjects, one of which is called "Science and Materials in construction and the Built Environment"... and I thought; I wonder where and who I know that would know such microscopic, vague knowledge?

Introducing; Bay12. So I figured I'd open up discussion on materials and their properties - it's an interesting topic for those interested, educational to all, and something I can parasite my butt off of.

So... Discuss; What are the best materials for conducting heat and electricity? What are the strongest yet most flexible materials? Which materials best dissuade the passing of liquids, sounds, radiation, so forth?

Also as a footnote, I hope to any previous acquaintances of Bay12 to me, whom pop their head through the door of this topic in passing interest, you are doing very finely.

Much adoration and everlasting friendship,

Azkanan

Spoiler: Subject Introduction (click to show/hide)

Link to PDF

Two important functions of a building are to provide shelter and create a comfortable space in which to live or work. To achieve this, it is necessary to know about and understand the materials used to construct a building, the basic concepts that underpin the structural integrity of the building, and the design of the building’s internal spaces.

The occupants of a building require a comfortable internal environment and there are several key factors that contribute to this. There are generally accepted ranges for these factors. Understanding what is acceptable to different end users who undertake a variety of tasks and activities is an essential requirement of good design.

The forces that act on buildings, the stresses generated by these forces and the effects of these stresses on the materials used to construct the building are also explored. Materials may be used for their structural or insulating properties; others, for example conduct heat and/or electricity well.

Learners will have the opportunity to investigate some of the typical materials used in their specific vocational pathway, including identifying the most important materials, a basic understanding of how they are extracted, harvested or manufactured, their key properties and uses, the mechanisms that cause them to deteriorate and the techniques used to prevent such deterioration.

[Max™]

Oh god I'm thrilled at the idea of someone studying engineering pondering the hilarious uses of candy.

"Well, we got the adamantine portapotties set up, and so far there is good news and bad news."
'Ok, what's the good news?'
"Well, the catchment tank liquid was enough mass to help hold them down under the straps in high winds, and they're absurdly light otherwise."
'...and?'
"The material is nearly frictionless, so it is self-cleaning."
'...and?'
"Well... the first tester slipped, sliced their fingers off on the doorframe trying to catch themself, and cursed loudly."
'That's terrible, were we able to get them reattached?'
"...not quite, apparently an adamantine container with one large exit and a small air intake provides a remarkably effective method of focusing soundwaves, due to the speed of sound in the material being impossible to measure, the reverberations built up inside of the chamber and began expelling air through the open doorway at an exponentially increasing rate, converting the tester into a fine mist."
'...goddamn, can we prevent this from ha-'
"Hang on, sir, we still haven't figured out how to make it stop doing this yet, we tried to build a containment chamber but it imploded."
'Oh... that's bad huh.'

[Gigaz]

I do materials research myself (mostly electronic properties on the nm scale) and I can confidently say that the best materials for conducting electricity are the superconductors . Though you will likely not encounter those in construction and the Built Environment.

[Azkanan]

Oh god I'm thrilled at the idea of someone studying engineering pondering the hilarious uses of candy.

"Well, we got the adamantine portapotties set up, and so far there is good news and bad news."
'Ok, what's the good news?'
"Well, the catchment tank liquid was enough mass to help hold them down under the straps in high winds, and they're absurdly light otherwise."
'...and?'
"The material is nearly frictionless, so it is self-cleaning."
'...and?'
"Well... the first tester slipped, sliced their fingers off on the doorframe trying to catch themself, and cursed loudly."
'That's terrible, were we able to get them reattached?'
"...not quite, apparently an adamantine container with one large exit and a small air intake provides a remarkably effective method of focusing soundwaves, due to the speed of sound in the material being impossible to measure, the reverberations built up inside of the chamber and began expelling air through the open doorway at an exponentially increasing rate, converting the tester into a fine mist."
'...goddamn, can we prevent this from ha-'
"Hang on, sir, we still haven't figured out how to make it stop doing this yet, we tried to build a containment chamber but it imploded."
'Oh... that's bad huh.'

Explosion-by-compression material for superstructure girders sounds like a swell idea.

[Max™]

Hell, are you familiar with the Xeelee Sequence?

Stephen Baxter, super geeky crunchy hard sci fi and whatnot right?

The Xeelee are like a 3 or higher on the Kardashev Scale, right, and their stuff is made out of the creatively named Xeelee Construction Material, or XCM. It's like a thought experiment turned into material science fetishporn.

Turn off the Pauli Exclusion Principle (how is an exercise left for the reader) so electrons and neutrons and protons and such can all get cozy and share a ground state, if this sounds like it should produce a terrifyingly large release of energy, I think it would too, but godlike technomagic can get around that and make sheets of the stuff, "a proton width thick, as dense as glass wool, and stronger than life itself" which makes sense because the binding energy needed to break pieces of it loose would be ridiculous, like shrugging off nuclear weaponry ridiculous.

The weird thing is, the properties sound a lot like adamantine in some ways, but Baxter specifically notes that XCM lacks electron clouds, and the interaction of those is where friction comes into play. There is actually a part of a story where they were discussing how difficult it was to tie something on to a Nightfighter due to the cables creeping along no matter how you arrange them.

If you could get a handle on a piece of it about 3 feet long and an inch wide, it would be an amazingly terrifying sword, can't even see it if you turn it edge on, despite part of learning how to use a sword being stuff like "don't cut your own limbs off" it's a lot easier to avoid doing that when you have to exert some sort of force first...