mechanical engineer

I don't think carbon nanotube technology is quite ready for your application.

Ed Weldon

From my limited knowledge of nanotubes, pushrods for any engine are many years away. It's hard on a google search to find it used or experimented with for much other than for it's excellent electrical conductivity or film type uses in thin structural applications. The heaviest structure made with it today is a portion of a tennis racket.

Neat technology, but I'd love to see the cost of a pushrod for a Harley if someone was willing to build one............. or four.

It looks like a technology waiting for it's cost to be realistic in everyday applications. Amazing stuff we 5 fingered creatures have come up with. Carbon nanotube applications seems to be endless............. neato.

I'd love to hear from others as to just how large of products are actually manufactured from these things. Most structural stuff I see while googling are sheet or film type products, not things that are bulkey or thick in structure.

yo, dude, right here, in The Wacky World Of Carbon Nano Tubes, we are, yes, you've guessed it, right this very minute, working on a set of racing HD pushrod nanotubes and we're looking for one motivated racer to try them out for us - can you believe your luck?

we expect our racing HD pushrod nanotubes will easily quintuple the horsepower of your stock HD mill so stay tuned while we perfect the idiosyncrasies of getting the little devils to withstand the tortuous stresses wreaked upon their little butts while whirring your HD buzzbox to RPM's that would make Soichiro Honda himself stare slack-jawed in amazement.

you will of course recall that it was him who made the famous observation that wreaked so much pain at HD before their resurgence as a pinball machine maker when he claimed that "RPM's will always beat cubic inches."

soon you will be able to show him that Cubic Inches and RPM's will always beat RPM's.

anyway, dude, while we're still getting the kinks worked out of your racing pushrod nanotubes have a look at the other stuff we've got lined up and on sale for your immediate sensual gratification.

http://www.nanowerk.com/

Is that why, when I was in drag racing 30+ years ago, we said "The only substitute for cubic inches is cubic money"? -- JHF

Hello Guest 'Dude,

From the tone of your post it sounds like you should cut down on the coffee..........or something!

Just joking dude!

Have a great new year

One of the focuses of the development of nanotube structures is a light, strong tether for a space elevator, a few thousand miles in length. A couple of inches should be a snap. (this is no joke, as weird as it seems). That probably won't happen until the day after I arrive at work in my first flying car. (also not a joke)

Titanium is your best bet for a few years yet.

If you want something that is not unobtainium try Copper-Beryllium tubing at 200K psi. Brushwellman can help you.

Study the MSDS on CuBe so you know what you are dealing with.

Brad