Material Design Sequence - Hemdian’s Notebook

Introduction

This is an optional expansion for the Starship hull material rules in Traveller New Era’s “Fire Fusion and Steel”.

Rules

First choose a basic material.

Basic Material
TL	Description	Type	Toughness	Mass	Cost
6	Steel	Metallic	2	7.8	0.0022
6	Aluminium Alloy	Metallic	1	2.7	0.0037
6	Titanium Alloy	Metallic	2.5	4.9	0.0102
7	Glass Composite (fiberglass)	Ceramic	0.75	1.9	0.0099
8	Graphite Composite	Ceramic	5	2.1	0.0595
9	Boron Composite	Ceramic	7	2	0.0875
9	Early Synthetics	Polymer	0.67	1.3	0.0715
10	Synthetics	Polymer	3.75	1.4	0.0804
11	Improved Synthetics	Polymer	5.63	1.5	0.1125

Then, optionally, enhance it … either by applying one or more appropriate treatments, or by converting it into a matrix composite. There is a 10% cost discount for each TL above the base for the material/treatment.

Treatment
TL	Description	For Type	Toughness	Mass	Cost
7	Improved Alloy	Metallic	x1.13	x0.97	x1.40
8	Amorphous Alloy	Metallic	x3.00	x0.90	x4.00
10	Crystallizing	Metallic	x4.00	x1.00	x5.00
10	Metal Foaming	Metallic	x1.00	x0.80	x1.06
11	Calcium-Carbide Fibre Reinforcement	Metallic or Ceramic	x2.00	x1.00	x3.00
11	Boron-Carbide Fibre Reinforcement	Metallic or Ceramic	x2.84	x1.00	x4.38
11	Silicon-Carbide Fibre Reinforcement	Metallic or Ceramic	?	?	?
11	Sapphicon Fibre Reinforcement	Metallic or Ceramic	?	?	?
11	Diamond Fibre Reinforcement	Metallic or Ceramic	?	?	?
12	Superdensing	Metallic	x7.00	x2.00	x7.00

Amorphous, Crystal, and Metal Foam are mutually exclusive.
Superdense and Metal Foam are mutually exclusive.
The different fiber reinforcements are mutually exclusive.

Matrix Composite
TL	Description	Toughness	Mass	Cost
9	2D Graphite Fibre Sheets	x1.06	x0.96	x4.16
9	2D Boron Fibre Sheets	x2.27	x0.93	x6.07
9	Silicon-Carbide Fibres	?	?	?
10	Sapphicon Fibres	?	?	?
10	Diamond Fibres	?	?	?

A superdense material can be further strengthened with electro-covalent bonding units or coherent electro-covalent bonding units. ECBs reinforce the molecular bonds with an electrical field (the toughness bonus only applies while there is power), coherent ECBs do the same but vary the electrical field based on the situation (toughness bonus 1 applies while there is power and computer control, toughness bonus 2 applies while there is power but no computer control).

Electro-Covalent Bonding Units
TL	Toughness	Cost
12	x1.00	0.026
13	x1.50	0.038
14	x2.00	0.067
15	x3.50	0.136
16	x3.75	0.154
18	x3.75	0.167
20	x3.75	0.296

Volume (m³) = hull material volume x 0.2
Mass (tonnes) = 1 per cubic metre of ECB
Power (Mw)= 0.005 per cubic metre of ECB
Cost (MCr) = n per cubic metre of ECB

Coherent Electro-Covalent Bonding Units
TL	Toughness1	Toughness2	Cost
18	x5.36	x3.75	0.209
20	x5.36	x3.75	0.37

Volume (m³) = hull material volume x 0.2
Mass (tonnes) = 1 per cubic metre of CECB
Power (Mw)= 0.005 per cubic metre of CECB
Cost (MCr) = n per cubic metre of CECB

Notes

There are still some outstanding issues:

Some values still missing.
Can Boron-Carbide fibers be used in matrix composite materials?
Are fiber reinforcement treatments too high at TL 11?
The original materials list (by Edward Fok?) had graphite composite and graphite laminated composite (both TL8). What is graphite laminated composite? Are we missing a category?

(Also, remember that TL represents production. Historically, amorphous alloys appeared in labs at TL7 but are not mass produceable until TL8.)

Introduction

Rules

Notes

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