On Feb 3, 11:18 am, Phillip Thorne <petho...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> If we were actually interested in building maintenance-free structures
> that last a long, long time, and cost was no object, what would we
> use? Stainless steel? Diamond slabs?
Carbon does react with oxygen, although this will be slow in the form
of bulk diamond crystals. Still, alumia (aka corundum, sapphire,
ruby) could very well be preferred for this reason.
> Would it work to simply coat
> steel and concrete with impermeable diamond instead of paint?
Carbon dissolves into steel. This indicates that diamond would not be
the preferred coating for steel - in time the coating would degrade
and the surface steel would weaken.
> As an
> unmatched thermal conductor, is diamond immune to destructive thermal
> stresses? Would it be safe fom everything short of volcanic bombs and
> crowds with hammerS?
Bulk diamond crystal is brittle, and likely to have catastrophic
failure modes. Some sort of nanocyrstalline material would likely
work better, since cracks will tend to stop at grain boundaries,
improving toughness.
Luke
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