| ▲ | bennyfreshness 6 hours ago | |
Basalt is stronger than glass fibers (made from silica / quartz / sand), but not as strong as carbon fiber. Also, its more expensive than glass, but less expensive than carbon. Generally considered eco friendly. Interestingly where carbon fiber's failure mode is instant, failing catastrophically (like say chalk), basalt will be more gradual (like say wood), in some use cases that's an advantage. Overall though its still not mass produced, uncertain if it will ever reach scale. If interested in fibers and composites, the YouTube channel Easy Composites is really interesting / educational. For example you can use flax fiber. | ||
| ▲ | exmadscientist 5 hours ago | parent [-] | |
It's a very good alternative to carbon fiber. It also has one very interesting property that carbon fiber doesn't: it's not conductive. This means, for example, that you can put it in an MRI machine and get signal back. You can't do that with carbon fiber, which shields the return RF signals and gives you a dark image, but doesn't damage anything. Basalt weave composites are basically completely transparent on an MRI. (For the same reasons, it also can be microwaved successfully. Carbon fiber can not be microwaved. Do not microwave real carbon fiber or carbon fiber composites.) | ||