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Flexible Body Armor
dotmax writes "One item to pop out of the Turin Winter Olympics is the use of flexible body armor. Similar to silly putty, this shear rate material is flexible under normal load and hardens under impact. Sounds expensive, but could offer some great alternatives for traditional hard shelled impact gear in active sports and military applications."
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Since it only hardens on impact, could it also be used in hand weaponry?
"Honest, officer, we just came across him and he was beaten to a pulp. You can search us, go ahead, we ain't got nothin' but our gym towels..."
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I might be impressed, but only if it uses a Holtzman Fields somehow....
*Disclaimer: May be exaggerated
The things that happen when struck by a bullet or shrapnel are different than a skier hitting the ground. This material could perhaps help to make the impact plates, but the actual stopping of the penetration will likely need "normal means"
Now when spies want to copy documents, they can just tear off a piece of their armor and press it against the pages.
In other news, 98% of women polled can't wait until they start making condoms out of this stuff.
But Phil Green, research director at d3o Labs, says it is difficult to precisely measure the material's properties because the hardening effect only last as long as the impact itself.
Certainly a researcher could take a sample of this material and strike it with increasing force using a material with known hardness. That might get them an answer beyond: "we don't know." I'm skeptical of this material's utility in a military application. Particularly as body armor against high velocity bullets and shrapnel. Woven carbon and Kevlar seem still unmatched in its capacity to take a high impact round. But, like I said, an assault riffle and a material sample could answer that question in minutes...
Sounds like gel suit armor. Let's hope you like your suits personality.
I do a lot of inline skating and I can see where this stuff could be revolutionary for outdoor inlining, skateboarding, etc.
Personally, I don't wear pads because they're uncomfortable. I do wear a helmet and palm sliders, which are supposed to help keep your palms from getting skinned up in an actual fall by serving as a buffer between your palms and the asphalt. In theory, they work pretty good. When you fall going upwards of 30MPH, they aren't a lot of help. Once you hit the ground, even if you initially brace with your palms, momentum is pretty much going to send you wherever it wants.
Being able to wear a long sleeved shirt or pants made of this stuff to help protect the knees and elbows would be huge. I have a road rash spot on my elbow now from a fall last weekend. Granted I don't fall much.. that was the first time in over a year I've had a crash and it was a very minor crash but even still, I'd probably wear this stuff for safety if it was available and not terribly bulky. Most inliners who are serious wear skin suits or jerseys so substituting this stuff would pretty much have no downsides as long as, like I said, it wasn't too bulky.
On the flip side, most skateboarders want to look "extreme" so this stuff might not be a huge hit with them. I personally like my skin intact, however.
Looks like they use a Non-Newtonian fluid, that's the type of material that has these properties.
This was one of the cooler demonstration in my HS chemistry class, the teacher made up a big batch of water + corn starch, and was playing with it like mud, squishing it around and whatnot. Then he beat the hell out of it, and it just sat there and didn't splash, it looked (and sounded) like it was a solid sheet. It was odd to see something that was very dynamic under low force, but static under high force.
It's like a seatbelt, if you yank it hard it locks up, but if you pull gently it will extend.
The original bullet-resistant vest was flexible. It was made of powdered glass, flexible until hit hard, at which point it would stiffen up and spread the force of the impact.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
...and frankly, this flexible armor sounds great. The reason you want some kind of protection is that you (sometimes in speed events, very often in slalom) run into gates (the plastic poles stuck in the snow that you have to turn around) with various parts of your body. Since you are going fast, and you are wearing a thin aerodynamic racing suit, it hurts like hell. So, if you don't feel like getting hurt, you strap on some plastic shin and arm guards, sort of like an Ancient Greek warrior with his greaves. Anyway, these plastic guards really are not the ideal solution. They chafe (since you are strapping them on tight, and the muscles and skin under the straps are constantly moving). They limit your motions quite a bit. They are, frankly, uncomfortable. And if you are doing speed events, they kill your aerodynamics.
So, as far as I am concerned, flexible armor is totally the way to go. Hopefully FIS won't ban it.
I want to get all my underwear made out of this stuff. That way I'll never have to wear a cup for sports.
It would also help for when I want to be impertinent to feminists.
I think people are getting the wrong impression here. This is put into suits for slalom and super G athletes. It's not to protect you from a fall, but to protect you from the flags that whip you when you go around them. It's not going to save you when you crash into a tree. It's going to stop you from getting bruises on your arms and legs when you hit the flags.
:-) )
Cool idea. But probably not particularly practical in other applications (maybe useful for kendo??? -- but the armour's way cool, so why change