Starting a new thread from another forum… People are making claims of “the highest tensile strength” Just how strong is the stuff ? Should I start havesting all the webs I have in the basement ? Is one type of spider’s webbing stronger than the others ? Wow 3 for the price of one
The tensile strength is the maximum stress that the material can withstand without breaking, and has units of force per cross-sectional area, which is N/m[sup]2[/sup], which is the same as pascals (Pa). Also, 1 MPa = 10[sup]6[/sup] Pa.
For identical cross-sectional areas, spider thread is indeed stronger than steel.
I read yesterday at the Ontario Science centre that a strand of spider silk 1cm in diameter is strong enough to hold up 5 elephants. What type of elephant, I don’t know, but either way its pretty impressive. I think the display also said that human hair 1cm in diameter can hold up one elephant.
This is already being addressed here, so I’ll close this thread and ask people to respond to the other one.