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Military Develops Liquid Body Armor
kai5263499 writes "Military.com has an article about a new liquid body armor the U.S. Army Research Laboratory has developed. According to Dr. Eric Wetzel, the project coordinator: 'The key component of liquid armor is a shear thickening fluid. STF is composed of hard particles suspended in a liquid. The liquid, polyethylene glycol, is non-toxic, and can withstand a wide range of temperatures. Hard, nano-particles of silica are the other components of STF. This combination of flowable and hard components results in a material with unusual properties'."
Armor that is lighter and more flexible would be more comfortable to wear. This makes it more likely to be worn. I would expect to eventually see designer suits utilizing this stuff to be bought up by politicians, rap stars, etc. Bascially anyone who would be interested in an armor plated limo.
Nifty stuff, although it seems that its resistance to stabbing has to be called into question when you consider that it's also sewable.
not getting into situations where it breaks down to a knife fight is probably the best defense against that.
Blaze a trail to the New World
As a former member of the US armed forces I had to wear a kevlar vest from time to time. The vests I wore hindered movement considerably. They were not that heavy, but the inflexibility was the worst part. As I was finishing my term new vest were just making their way into use that incorporated ballistic plates (steel I think, maybe ceramic) to actually stop bullets. The vest I wore were only said to stop fragments not a direct bullet impact. The downside to the newer vests was heavier weight. If they can make the vest more flexible, lighter weight, and have better stopping great.
Our service members need every advantage they can get. Wether or not you agree with the politics that puts our troops in harms way a person must be very anti-American to not want them all to come home again.
That is all for my rant. Time to go home for the day. :)
the_crowbarHave you read the Moderator Guidelines
Does the "poly" really change it all that much?
Sodium explosively combusts in water! Chlorine gas is highly toxic! Can the combination really change their properties all that much?
chemistry is a starnge and wonderous thing. One electron on a chlorine molecule stands between it possibly giving you cancer.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Been there. Done that. It's called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Look it up.
How heavy is it? How hot does it make the wearer? Can a Private break it?
This guy is way out there
Water-soluble, eh?
So...is this armor pretty much out of the question for amphibious units, or soldiers in the rain?
Does it freeze and shatter in cold weather, or bake out in hot weather? Does it absorb sweat during a march and then your armor runs down your leg?
...
I think I can speak for nearly all of us when I say the last thing we want is to see American soldiers die. That's kind of the whole point.
>*sigh*
>
> that is exactly the parent's point. If its stab resistant how can it also be sewable. Since > sewing is essentially stabbing a piece of cloth with a needle that has some thread going > through it.
It's probably the same reason you can pour it slowly as a liquid. When you sew it you're using a small amount of energy on a small area, whereas a bullet has a lot more energy and mass and causes more of a chain reaction. Probably.
Sure, you're right, but is that realistic?
Take a prison guard, for example. I'm sure they have institutional procedures and general street smarts to help them out, but they still get hurt. That's why they need things like this.
But, 7.5 pounds of sweaty armor just for stab protection is a lot of weight, and asking someone to wear another vest just for ballistic protection may be unrealistic. A vest that does both and is more comfortable than standard armor could be useful.
And notice that the above item is designed for protection against ice picks. Knives aren't the only things that can puncture a person's hide. I defy anyone to see and avoid an ice pick in the middle of a crowd.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
Nukes are not always desirable.
For example you may want something the country has *cough* oil *cough*. In that case you don't want to make the country uninhabitable. Not only do you want to make sure the occupying army is unharmed but you will need the labor of the civillians to make the gears of industry turn.
If we dropped nukes on iraq who would pump the oil and transport it to our ships? How could our soldiers stay in the country for a decade to make sure people do what we say?
...this reminds me of something I saw in QUT when I was doing this science thing in Year 10.
:)
The professor demonstrating an experiment had a container of corn flour and water and asked everyone what would happen if he pounded the mix.
The answers were varied but basically were "a huge splat".
When he did thump the mix, nothing happened.
The explanation was that corn flour particles, when suspended in a liquid, will "solidify" when a fast moving mass strikes them due to the unique structure of each individual particle.
I wonder if the ingredients list of the liquid armour mix includes corn flour.
Polyethylene glycol's pretty good on one hand: it's dirt cheap, comes in a variety of weights (we have on the shelf in lab average molecular weight PEGs from 200 to 20,000 daltons) and as has been mentioned above is nontoxic. What's bad about PEG is that it degrades fairly easily--it should be stored in the dark and kept cold, at least if you're going to use it as a reagent. This makes me wonder about the shelf life of the armor, although PEG degredation might not be the limiting factor; physical wear and tear might be.
Couple of issues here (avoiding the whole flame aspect):
1) While logistics would be a pain, if the US camped a couple of carrier battle groups off the coast of a given country, they would own the sky and sea in short order. It becomes much easier to keep supplied when you can do that.
2) Iraq had something like the 3rd largest army in the world back in 1991, which the US effectively neutralized in a month or so. Again, airpower is king. The country isn't large or exceptionally modern, but it was quite a military foe.
3) If Iraq is small, then there aren't many countries that are a big military threat. Germany, the UK, israel... the list is small and we're on good terms of most of the strongest countries (coincidence? I think not)
4) The fact that the US hasn't fought a "big" country in years doesn't mean jack with regards to the ability to. I've never mugged someone, that doesn't mean I'm too weak to.
Sure, there's some arrogance from the US on the military front, it makes sense. Like it or not, the US posesses the strongest military force in the world.
Hate us for our culture, politics, whatever, that's an subjective opinion and you are welcome to them. But military strength is an objective thing, and hatred of the States doesn't diminish that.
And yeah, if we fought a united (!) Europe, we could probably be beaten. There are a zillion better reasons not to attack, least of all being that France is a strong ally...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
We Aready have those... they're called m-16's.
Contrary to popular belief, Kevlar vests do not completly negate the effects of a 5.56 round hitting the soldier.
They're designed to prevent injury from fragmentation, (explosions, etc) which accounts for most battlefield injures.
Although in some cases vests have saved soldiers from the effects of bullet wounds, that's not the intent.
But how does a footbal player turn soldier qualify as a hero, exacty?
I was a soldier, am I a hero? Are football players heroes?
What about Iraqi soldiers, are they heroes?
Sadly this invention was too late to save Pat Tillman.
How very disrespectful to single out this one man out as "a Hero" for the mere media value that he played in the NFL. His pre-war job was to play a silly game for millions of dollars; how is that significant? It is a sad commentary that that is the reason his death gets any more coverage than other soldiers killed in this political bloodbath. The NFL probably paused for all of 5 seconds before casting him aside and filling his position with someone else, and now they're latching on to mountains of press coverage because he's dead.
It's hard to say that without seeming to take away from Pat or without seeming to sound like a troll, but it had to be said in light of you being moderated up. So, yes, think about why Pat went to fight, but don't forget about all the others who sacrificed to fight and who died without all the fanfare. You should be far more thankful for their history of anonymous sacrifice.
I definitely want the Al Queda fuckers to die. Miserably. I just don't believe that Iraq has anything to do with that, though the foreign guerillas streaming into Iraq to shoot at Americans can all fucking eat shit and die.
Rubbish, it's not disrespectful to anyone. The guy turned down $ millions to volunteer to go fight for a cause he believed in after returning from his honeymoon. That demonstrates unusual and quite incredible selflessness, sacrifice and commitment to his country, he was also well known and liked by many fans whatever you think of that. He made the Army Rangers, an elite force and now he's joined the ranks of America's war dead. Telling his story takes nothing away from the others, I remember when this guy joined up with his brother, he was being interviewed (nobody could quite figure out why he was doing it and he was reticent about going into details) and I remember thinking, "that's one hell of a guy", now we've learned today that he's been killed. If anything it brings the loss of the thousands of family members into sharp focus through our fleeting familiarity with this hero. And no I ain't even an NFL fan.
You belittling his sacrifice and claiming his career was silly is ignorant and disrespectful.
Whose vest are you talking about? My vest (Safariland Zero-G level III-A) should actually stop bullets. It's rated for that, anyway.
I'm not sure if they're effective against the .223 rounds in question, but I can test this easily enough. I replace the vest anyway around Halloween, and shooting the old vests is a time-honored cop tradition. :)
So, anybody want to pony up for a few boxes of SS109?
And reading about how military ballistic vests don't actually stop bullets, has anybody ever wondered why an EMT-Basic working for AMR has a better (lighter AND more effective) vest than most soldiers? Someone should pass on to the Army that it's really not that hard to get decent body armor. Even a dumb-assed ticket-writing nazi pig like me can manage it.
How about using a piezoelectric effect? Deforming the outer surface (e.g. a bullet strike) creates a charge that propogates through the fluid beneath the outer sheath and causes it to stiffen.
no... far different types of impacts
/. and people will believe _anything_
Modern bullet proof vests would not work well as hockey pads, they are mean to stop a fast moving small dull projectile, nothing else.
yeah, I know this is just meant to be funny, but this is
Uhhh, the fluid is inside of little packets. The packets are fairly flexable, since they contain liquid, but they solidify when sudden force is applied, such as a bullet/shrapnel impact, or a concussive blast. They are inset into combat gear, instead of rigid plates.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
The modern challenge for our military is not war mongering - we rule at making war - but peace keeping - that is respecting people and serving a population while being vulnerable to rogue dissendents.
This raises the need to identify the location of a stray bullet in real time.
Imagine a self organized network of wearable computers with pretty basic microwave doppler shift detectors.
Even a single bullet fired would create a doppler shifted frequency in a reflected microwave signal, and the network could compare notes and triangulate the trajectory - even calculating a return fire path and indicate if not photograph or return at least rubber bullets on the perpetrator.
That would be awesome defensive gear.
AIK
Rubbish, it's not disrespectful to anyone. The guy turned down $ millions . . .
This is directly disrespectful because you are making it firstly about the money when he did not. In that way, yes, he is a far better person than you are, but that doesn't necessarily make him a better person than others who are over there fighting. If he is over there because he thought it was the right thing to do, then everyone over there doing the right thing deserves the same amount of praise. I give it to them. You shit on them by saying they didn't give up $3 million first. You're an asshole not deserving the freedoms provided by the sacrifices made by all our troops.
You belittling his sacrifice and claiming his career was silly is ignorant and disrespectful.
Absolutely wrong. Pat himself knew how unimportant playing football was, and that was why he went to do something significant. You people saying football and money were difficult things to give up are the ones who belittle him. From the linked article:
"My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has ... gone and fought in wars, and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that," Tillman told NBC News in an interview the day after the attacks.
Going above and beyond the call of duty is what spereates the heroes from the soldiers.
Absolutely. I respect the hell out of anyone who fights for another person's freedom, but that should not be considered a heroic act, it should be considered a solemn act of every free person. Every time people point to the $3 million as important, they disrespect not only Pat but every other soldier out there who is leaving things at home they value far more than money.
The Dune personal shield was almost exactly like this stuff. The Holtzman effect field would prevent higher velocity objects from penetrating. The higher the speed, the tougher it is to penetrate the field, the lower the speed, the easier it was for something to pass through. So yeah, the trick was to slow your attacks at the right moment to penetrate the field and injure your opponent. So yeah, if you moved the needle slowly enough, it would easily penetrate the armor with no additional force than "dry" armor. Here's an analogy I think is good. Jump out over a swimming pool about a foot above it laterally so you do a soft belly flop. Doesn't sting too much does it? Now do a belly flop from 50 ft ;)
you don't want to make the country uninhabitable
Yes, this is why neutron devices are preferable to nukes. Eliminate the people but leave the infrastructure intact. Or so I recall from whatever sci-fi....
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
"You know what pisses me off most? Not naive idiots like you, but that George Bush was a pussy. If we had treated Iraq like we did Germany or France at the end of WWII there would be *no* uprisings, car bombs, or anyother getting out of line. But no. Jr. had to go and do a 'humane' war. Dont bomb infrastructure.. dont bomb civies. Uncle."
That's right. Because, as we know, the repressive tactics the Soviets used in Eastern Europe translated into "no uprisings, car bombs, or anyother getting out of line".
All but one of the guys who dropped the nukes committed suicide.
And so did many victims of the Holocaust.
And yet, many of the Nazis who committed what were -- unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- unarguably war crimes, did not commit suicide, and some continue to collect pensions from the German government to this day.
I'm not trying to say that no American ever committed war crimes; My Lai was also unarguably a war crime (and may Calley burn in Hell!), and some of the U.S. military's actions in Iraq -- as in throwing prisoners in a river to drown -- surely are atrocities.
I'm just pointing out that suicide isn't necessarily what the guilty do. Indeed, I'd be inclined to suggest that the really guilty, people like Josef Mengele ("Angel of Death" responsible for human experimentation at Auschwitz, died vacationing at a Brazilian beach), Rudolf Höß (first commandant of Auschwitz, executed), and Erich_Priebke (perpetrator of the Ardeatine caves massacre, still alive), tend to be so -- for lack of a better word -- evil that they feel they're not guilty and therefore feel no need for suicide or other punishment. (Indeed, Priebke so strongly felt that the killing 350 Italian civilians was not his responsibility but the responsibility of those who ordered him to do it, that he openly admitted his actions from fifty years later to a television news crew's cameras -- and it was only this admission that led to his trial).
For the record, I believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were no more illegal than any bombing of cities in the war -- and all major combatants bombed cities in World War II. Dead by conventional bomb, dead by V1 rocket, dead by fire-bombing, dead by atomic bomb -- they're all dead. I'm unaware of any difference in ways of being dead, with the possible exception that atomic bombs mean a quicker death.
Also, for the record, I believe any crime involved in dropping the atomic bombs pales beside the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Korea, China (in "the Rape of Nanking" (warning: link includes a disturbing picture of mass decapitation) the word "rape" is used pretty literally -- but includes ripping babies from their mothers' arms and bashing the babies' heads against walls, prior to raping the mother), the Philippines, and the Bataan Death March, not to mention the Japanese forced labor camps in which tens of thousands died.
To those who contend that we "could have" beaten Japan without recourse to atomic bombs, I ask them how many more America boys would have had to have died to achieve an unconditional Japanese surrender using only conventional weapons -- and if those arguing against using atomic bombs had any of their family members on the line.
I wasn't in the Pacific fighting Japan, but Paul Fussell (later professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania) was -- after fighting Hitler's legions in Europe -- and I'll defer to his opinion and that of the other boots on the ground: "Thank God for the Atomic Bomb"
But let me ask you: how many American boys would you have sacrificed in further conventional war against Japan, so that you, safe at home, could claim the moral high ground of an atomic-bomb-free but protracted conventional war ?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
By far most of the people who oppose the war are not American, and their primary reason to oppose it is the tens of thousands of Iraqis that were and are killed. Not that most people want the American soldiers dead, but those 700 are a much lesser concern, especially since they did do most of all that killing.
The tendency of Americans to completely forget/not care that there even were any Iraqis hurt is maybe the most disturbing thing about this country to me.
Excuse me? A quicker death my ass! If you were dying of radiation sickness right now, or were a child with one and a half arms, soon to die from cancer I don't think you'd be so keen to drop nuclear bombs.
I do not know whether it was "economical" (although using that word in references to human lives disgusts me) to drop the bombs, but doing something such as that was definitely an atrocity. Perhaps it was the lesser of two evils, but it was still damn evil - and everyone should recognise that.
When it comes to a falloutesque situation, I hope it was, at least, "economical."
im in ur
Such was my first thought, also.
It would *have to* distribute the kinetic energy of impact - there's nowhere else for it to go, after all.
One would probably end up bruised over a larger area, but it would reduce point impact damage considerably.
Shit, I wish this stuff had been available for leathers 13 years ago - would have saved me a lot of pain.
Another application that excites me is clothing for construction workers - sharp impacts and trauma are a large cause of most injuries.
Wow.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.