Pole vaulting is a spectacular, dangerous sport. Modern poles could be drastically improved to make them more reliable, with healable tech being developed that could also be used in surfing and cycling.
[Making cracks visible is] helpful, but what would be ideal is a way to not just find the cracks, but to fix them.
That’s what the article says, they’re hardly implying it’s nonsense. Or are you saying that the self-healing is nonsense? There are examples of self-healing materials, like Roman concrete.
That’s extremely dismissive, of something that appears to resolve the issue entirely.
Self healing materials with similar properties and requirements to pole vaulting poles don’t exist. They might eventually, but we’re not close. When the weight and flex requirements are that strict, and failure is that catastrophic, expecting a solution in the next 20 years is extremely optimistic, and that’s ignoring costs entirely. The article should be discussing the actual real world solution far more.
Research is great.
But the article is dismissing a very practical solution and implying it’s nonsense to pump up a pie in the sky longshot.
That’s what the article says, they’re hardly implying it’s nonsense. Or are you saying that the self-healing is nonsense? There are examples of self-healing materials, like Roman concrete.
That’s extremely dismissive, of something that appears to resolve the issue entirely.
Self healing materials with similar properties and requirements to pole vaulting poles don’t exist. They might eventually, but we’re not close. When the weight and flex requirements are that strict, and failure is that catastrophic, expecting a solution in the next 20 years is extremely optimistic, and that’s ignoring costs entirely. The article should be discussing the actual real world solution far more.