Out of plastics available to the public, which type of plastic has the greatest tensile strength, and which type has the greatest compressive strength?Thanks!
ABS the stuff they make flymos out of chosen to resist broken blade or stone thrown by blade-
basically the very high tensile strength materials are specialist materials. So it depends how hard you try to get hold of it, how much you will pay etc. There are tables in the links - generally fiberglass is strong, while polythene generally isnt. Composites are stronger than pure materials. The last link has a bit of explanation (powerpoint) about composites.
The greatest tensile strength, as I recall from our Polymers subject, is Polyamides or it is more famous in our country by its brand name: Nylon. It is commonly used and seen as a kind of thick thread, maybe because of its very high tensile strength, that this plastic are commonly seen by the public ONLY as threads. Honestly, polyamides are the only polymer (or plastic for that matter), that I know that comes as threads, and not as a rope. Probably because of its very high tensile strength, it doesn't need to come as a rope, but just as a thread should do just the trick. For the greatest compressive strength, I think it is Polypropylene. Because the main usage of polypropylene in the public use are in plastic chairs, plastic tables, or any functional material that requires great strength, so I believe it is polypropylene that has the greatest compressive strength.
