the Pykrete Dome - worlds biggest icedome - a movie by Bart van Overbeeke - Structural Ice

That's a big igloo.

Check out the ice/wood pulp structure up there. There aren't many details in the video ('fiber-reinforced ice', sure but which fiber?) , but there are more over on the accompanying website.

And the construction video (below) look like a load of fun.

ICE SWORD! (Made With Pykrete)

That's a heck of a sword there,

And it's way stronger than it would have been if it were made of just ice.

See, ice is strong in compression but weak in tension. Paper - toilet paper, for example - is the opposite: weak in compression but strong in tension.

Combine them together, and you get a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts. See, that's a composite for you.

Pykrete - collecting videos

Pie-crete (sp?)...Mythbusters



In an earlier post, we saw a video go through the history of pykrete, a composite of wood pulp (or sawdust in some reports) and ice. The materials was championed by - and named for - a British inventor named Geoffrey Pyke.

When I brought up the material in class one year, a student mentioned that Mythbusters had done an episode on the feasibility of using pykrete as a boat-building material. Since I couldn't find the full episode online, I thought I'd post all the clips I could find - from Mythbusters and two other television shows exploring pykrete.

And I don't want to hear any snotty comments about Mythbusters.

Aircraft Carrier Made of Ice

I was introduced to this video while making composite ice pucks with my class.  We started with three circular plastic containers.  The first was plain water, the second was water with newspaper strands in it, and the third was water filled with sawdust.  We stuck the containers in the freezer and I promised the students we would be testing them the next day.  One of my best nerds raised his hand right before the bell and asked if anyone had heard about the aircraft carrier made of ice.  Needless to say, it was the topic of conversation for the rest of the class and the students were begging for the video the next day.