Originally Posted by
tomato coupe
"To date" and "to that date" have different meanings. You can claim you made a typo, but you can't claim what you wrote means something else. And, since the Antonov no longer exists, it is not "the biggest airplane now."
There are ways to deal with soft materials in structural applications, such as threaded inserts. Regardless, we can choose another material, such as oak. It has a specific strength nearly identical to aluminium and is very hard. Or we can choose nylon, which has a specific strength greater than stainless steel and nearly (90%) the same as titanium. Yet, neither oak or nylon are used for construction of bike frames because they lack adequate tensile strength.
The bottom line is that specific strength does not determine if a material is suitable for bike frames. Why are you fixated on it?
I feel sorry for you, so confused by the things you read.
I imagine the problem with nylon is the same problem with kevlar - too flexible. Kevlar is incredibly strong, but not stiff. So we don't use it alone for structural composites. Both are used to make ballistic cloth that is flexible enough to absorb impacts without tearing. Something that carbon or fiberglass are too rigid to do.
Here's a hard wood frame from Renovo (ash and gum cherry). They weigh around 5 pounds and have nice ride characteristics. Would you say it is not made of wood?
Here's an oak one (I'm told you can't make a bike from oak):
As you know, tubular rims used to be made of wood. You can buy new ones from Wheel Fanatyk. They weigh 430 grams each.
I'm excited to see how you put a spin on this information.