LMS AGM & Liddiard Memorial Lecture 7th May 2009 Click here for AGM notice and agenda (AGM starts at 6.30pm) Following AGM the Liddiard Memorial Lecture will start at 7pm. High performance carbon nanotube fibres Professor Alan Windle, Cambridge University Venue: IoM3, I Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5DB Lecture abstract A single sheet of graphite, known these days as graphene, is exceptionally stiff and strong in its plane. If these sheets are rolled and joined to make tubes, then the tubes will reflect those excellent mechanical properties along their axes. Carbon nanotubes may consist of just a single wall (SWNTs) or many walls fitted inside each other rather like a Russian Doll to make multi wall tubes (MWNTs). As is usual in the fibre business, strengths and stiffness are measured in newtons/tex, where a tex is the mass of 1km length of the fibre. It is helpful that N/tex is numerically equivalent to GPa/SG or specific stress. For a single nanotube the strength is some 10x that currently seen in the best carbon fibre. The challenge is thus typical materials science, how do we realise the brilliant properties of the building blocks when assembled into a material form which is useful. The fibres described will be those made by direct spinning from the CVD reaction zone where the fibres are synthesised. The relationship between the structure and mechanical properties of the fibre will be described, and the strategies for optimising strength and stiffness discussed in the context of the emerging excitement engendered by any radically new material.  Finally, some initial experiments to make composites from the fibre will be discussed, and their implications for the future. Speaker biography: Alan Windle FRS is Professor of Materials Science in the Materials Department at Cambridge. He started his professional career as a metallurgist at Imperial College but then morphed into a polymer scientist with an emphasis on polymer physics and computational modelling. Latterly he has focused on carbon nanotubes seeing them rather as the ultimate polymer molecule, - a new odyssey which embraces core materials science as well as process engineering, and even a little metallurgy. This Lecture is free to attend and open to the general public. Tea/coffee available from 6pm. For further information please contact Dr Emile Greenhlagh.... e.greenhlagh@imperial.ac.uk