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Asked by JOSIE to Ellen, Elliot, Hazel, Rupesh, Thomas on 17 Jun 2016.
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Elliot Jokl answered on 17 Jun 2016:
The answer is – it depends how you measure it!
If you have a strand of spider’s silk and a strand of steel (which is strengthened iron) which are the same size, the steel is actually a little bit stronger.
However, spider silk is about 5 times less dense than steel, so the same sized bit of spider silk weighs about 5 times less than steel. So if you think about it in terms of strength per unit of weight, spider silk is a lot stronger.
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Thomas Biggans answered on 18 Jun 2016:
Elliot has covered the answer here that if they were both the same size then steel would be a little bit stronger but it would also be alot heavier
I’d just like to add that light materials that are really strong are very useful for building things particularly when it comes to things that move like airplanes, cars and space ships!
All of these things need to be built from materials strong enough to hold people inside them but if they were really heavy then the car wouldn’t go very fast, the airplane would need bigger wings to take off and the space ship might not make it to space because the rockets aren’t powerful enough. So having strong materials that are very light will help us to travel faster, further and with less fuel! Perhaps we will use spider silk to make our cars in the future?
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