Talk:Lifetime of Materials
I created a category for Deep Time . This may be more used for Geological Time however, and that is not what i was thinking about. I was thinking more along what the group The Long Now Foundation advocates for thinking about, or the Haudenosaunee Concept of The Seventh Generation Philosophy . Not just "what will this do now", but "what will it do multiple generations, or centuries from now.
A related concept are Cathedral Projects / the quote "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." (Can't seem to find the origin for this, may be a bit of a universal concept to an extent, given the slow growth of trees, and how nearly all societies are around them)
Granted i think we can build stuff faster these days so i take those mainly in the metaphorical stance.
The thing that really has me interested is the concept of Deep Time Durable (or something along those lines). When they were designing the Clock of the Long Now , they had to consider Creep (Deformation) that usually one would not need to (Similar to how the Pitch drop experiment would not necessarily be considered a "leak" / "drop" by most). They also had to consider long term Diffusion , and something akin to Cold Welding
Quote from The Long Now org Website's Clock Subsection
"Still, The Clock is a machine with moving parts, and parts wear down and lubricants evaporate or corrode. Most of The Clock will be made in a marine grade 316 stainless steel. One of the main worries of the Clockmakers is that elements of a 10,000 year Clock — by definition — will move slowly. The millennial dial creeps so slowly it can be said to not move at all during your lifetime. Metals in contact with each other over those time scales can fuse — defeating the whole purpose of an ongoing timepiece. Dissimilar metals in contact can eat each other in galvanic corrosion. To counteract these tendencies, all of The Clock’s bearings are ceramic.
Ceramics will outlast most metals as they can be diamond hard and do not corrode or rust. We have found shards of clay pots over 17,000 years old. Because these engineered ceramic bearings are so hard, and rotate at very low speed, they require no grit-attracting lubrication."
A similar example would be the Long-term nuclear waste warning messages and the planning that required, although that is essentially not needed due to Breeder Reactor / Accelerator based Transmutation to Shorter Lived Stuff. But they imagined things that would have to last eons and still be recognizable. VERY Interesting read if you haven't heard about those already.
Despite their Horrible Origin, the "Flaktürme" Flank Towers Germany Built in WW2. These MASSIVE Concrete Blockhouses/Above Ground Bunkers were not only near impervious to bombing and artillery (Due largely to their (Supposedly) 3.5 Meter Thick Reinforced Concrete Walls)
Granted the cost/utility for most things does obviously not need to be that level, but with modern materials like Composite Rebar , Carbon Fiber Reinforced Concrete and Ultra-High Performance Concrete / Nanocrete (Pile of buzzwords, but basically won't rust, very crack resistant, with the more "exotic" concrete mixes, you can even have "self healing" aspects. Other materials would be Fiber Reinforced Plastic , Ceramics , Synthetic Sapphire , Polycrystalline Diamond / Monocrystalline Diamond , Engineered Stone , Firestopping , and Glass / Slag / Basalt type material
Also given Design for Disassembly that can be an issue as well, but i think this concept of "hard to break even if you tried" is an interesting goal, and one which modern materials are allowing with more and more ease
I'm rambling, but this concept of "when will this component fail" or "how little maintenance / upkeep can i get this thing to" are really neat (hence this giant rant lol)
