I mean, even building something that's relatively small and simple, like lightweight rail transportation networks, in the USA is an all-out political cluster-fuck that often take years and years of deliberation and many are never built at all.
In the field of lightweight construction for transportation means, hybrid structures composed of high-strength and low-density materials exhibit a high application potential.
Presently, due to the energy saving concerns, there is an increase demand for lightweight structures for transportation industry, electric power wind generators among others.
The onsert is a joining element to achieve load introduction into lightweight structures typical for the transportation sectors.
While polystyrene (commonly known as Styrofoam) can be recycled, most cities do not accept this lightweight, air-filled material because transportation costs outweigh the economic benefits of recycling it.
In the context of lightweight structure design for the transportation and robotics industries, new types of composite structures are being developed, in the form of trusses made of fiber-reinforced polymer composite members of small diameter (a few millimeters thick at most).
For applications where weight is a crucial factor — such as in spacecraft, aviation or for use in remote areas of the developing world where transportation costs are significant — such lightweight cells could already have great potential, Bernardi says.
Aluminium alloys are most attractive solutions for many industrial sectors, including the aerospace, marine and other transportation industries, where demand for lightweight structures exists.
Co-author and materials scientist Yuntian Zhu of North Carolina State University in Raleigh says there is strong incentive to scale up the process because the alloy could be useful for "many lightweight, energy-efficient applications such as aerospace, transportation, and body armor".
Such robots are flat and lightweight (15 grams) and thus conveniently compact for transportation and storage.
