I Need A Conductor

I hate dealing with witch doctors but sometimes there is no alternative than you voodoo materials science folk.

What is a low cost (< $5/lb) light weight (< 2g/cc) material that remains a solid at 2200 F and can be spun into wool (d < .2mm) and is a more or less an ok conductor?

Stresses are minimal -- a gas moving at 1 meter per second.

Bret Cahill

"Down in Loosiana where the black trees grow lived a voodoo woman named Marie . . ."

Reply to
Bret Cahill
Loading thread data ...

How solid? A high-silica glass (but not pure silica) that softens at your operating temperature would be a decent conductor. Mass density is 1.6 gm/cc. Depending on silica content, may be spinnable into wool (very high silica content would be less spinnable).

Reply to
Mark Thorson

I can do this in two stages, an overpriced small high temperature stage and a reasonably priced lower temperature stage.

Bret Cahill

Reply to
Bret Cahill

If an ionic conductor is suitable for your application, and your temperature always remains fairly high, then yttria stabilizated zirconia would be a good option, as long you are running in an air atmopshere. Ultra high temperature heating elements are based on zirconia. Silicon carbide could be another option, readily available, and very resiliant (above 1000C in air only for a very short time. Both materials are readily available in 200um fibers.

Reply to
ceraboy

Wouldn't both of those materials flunk his mass density requirement?

Reply to
Mark Thorson

Indeed they would, however, they offer properties not available via carbon fibers. Even your high silica glass option would not offer decent conductivity without sodium, which kills the high temperature application potential. Only a carbon fiber meets all four requirements, but only in inert atmosphere. Sure there are other exotics, but cost is usually the biggest hurdle. Silicon carbide can approach densities of 2.5g/cc which is pretty darn close and probably the best option. The zirconia was a wild card thought, and the lowest density high temperature conductor I could come up with. Given the right design of the system, a good engineer should be able to compensate for a single shortcoming, otherwise nothing would ever get built. Well there you go Mark, my two cents expanded.

Reply to
ceraboy

Zircon can be bought as fibre, as can chromic oxide, I believe. Both may have some additives to allow the fusion process, to provide alumina-zirconia-silica and chrome alumina respectively. Both are good conductors.

Reply to
Terry Harper

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.