Nanotube Body Armor Coming Soon

s31523 writes "Military and law enforcement agencies are constantly seeking better protection in the line of fire, but current armor is heavy and bulky. The University of Cambridge has developed a new type of carbon fiber made up of nanotubes that is some cases exceeds the performance of Kevlar. The new material has other potential uses as well, from bomb disposal bins to flexible solar panels."

Comments

Re:Looks Familiar

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I know it's inevitable and I want our troops protected, but its ironic how much this looks like the garb worn by the enforcer types in dozens of dystopia movies.

They're just fitting in with the modern trend. In the time I've lived here in Cambridge, the average police uniform has gone from the friendly, lots-of-white Police Service garb to the almost-all-black Police Force look of today. This has, of course, been happening in parallel with the systematic erosion of individual rights and increases in summary powers for the police, all with the backing of both our national government and, in some cases, our local councils. It would be sadly ironic if police officers became even more invulnerable^Wisolated due to an invention from our very own university.

Re:Exposed bits..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sadly, it is the bits behind the vest that are the problem for several British troops killed in places like Iraq each year because they hadn't been supplied with the right body armour or had been required to return it so other troops with greater perceived need could have it.

I'm no fan of the war in Iraq or the politicians behind it, but if we're going to send our boys and girls into a dangerous situation like that, you'd think giving them the best equipment available would be the least we could do. Hopefully with this being a home-grown invention, it might go some way to protecting them better.

Re:Looks Familiar

[vertinox]

It will be far easier for our adversaries to paint our troops as inhuman.

That may have benefits as well. Would you shoot something that doesn't look human and you aren't entirely sure they are going to die? If the enemy appeared to be immortal cyborgs that your (apparently) puny weapons had no affect on, would you not just be afraid of them and comply?

Only part of the problem.

[downix]

Listening to an NPR program on battlefield recovery, I got to thinking how the soldiers on the field could be given a better chance for a full recovery if they recieved medical care sooner. Well, they're already getting emergency treatment to stabilize them within 30 minutes. But if they got it sooner, well just imagine. So I got to thinking, what would any soldier have with them that could administer treatment incase of wound? Why, their armor. Let's take these nano-tubes for a moment, and "fill them" with advanced hole and wound sealant technology? Why, the moment a soldier was shot, their wound would be patched, as the breaking of the tubes themselves would release the treatment. Add in an auto-administrator of medication to keep the soldier going till he could get to the hospital, I'd imagine full recoveries would go up, wouldn't you?

Health Concerns

[failedlogic]

Might there not be a health concern/issues with nanotube or nano-anything (yes that was technical!), being used? Their structures are so small our immune systems can't block it and it might adhere to cell walls more than we
'd ever want to. Wearing such body armor, which would stop speeding bullets, IEDs, mines, rockets from injuring soldiers might not be a good idea. The injury from the enemy fire might not be the only concern.

Re:Health Concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I mean nano carbon tubes is FAR more dangerus then graphite(bike oil) I mean it's got the word nano in it, and we all know that the word nano totaly went beserk and killed 50 people last year.

On a serius note. Carbon Nano tubes don't have the same "could be dangerus" stamp as nanosized manmade particles, since they aren't nanosized. They may have a nanometer diameter, but they can be as long as several centimeters.
And again the danger of nanosized particles isn't that they are nanosized, it's simply that they are normaly (the ones that are a health issue) of a material that's a health issue.

And the whole "nanocover"-scandale when Germans got sick from using hydrophobic sprays to make windows dirtprof wasn't due to the particles being nanosized "Thus able to pass though our body!!!" It's simply because they inhaled it. Anyone should be smart enough to know that you should inhale something that's meant to supply a hydrophobic cover unless you want hydrophobic lungs.

Re:Pointless

[hey!]

For one thing, because it simply isn't true that we can't get it to them. We just can't supply them at the rate we ought to at the price we are willing to pay. It boils down to the fact that the number of lives saved isn't worth it to the US taxpayer, or at least the ones that vote.

For another, just because it is "got to them" doesn't mean it stays got. Every time a ceramic armor plate takes a bullet, it ought to be replaced. Even just being knocked around can probably weaken the armor. Durability is the reason the flexible glued ceramic disk armor might not be the best choice for an environment like Iraq.

For yet another, fabric based armor makes it possible to protect areas that you can't with ceramic armor: the hands, the head. There was a report on NRP about the unusual number of fatalities suffered by police this year. The bad guys have adjusted to the fact that the police wear body armor and take a head shot before the cop realizes he needs to draw his gun.

Finally, production of fabric armor an probably be scaled more cheaply than ceramic plates. You start with a vat of organic goo, draw threads out of it, spin them into thread and weave them into garments. You can make as large a "plate" as you need by setting up long warp yarns and weaving a longer strip of cloth. Think of a set of drapes: you could produce armored drapes if you wanted to. By contrast with ceramic you have to fire each plate in an oven. To make a larger plate, you need a larger oven and presumably getting a uniform result is trickier. To ramp up the production line, you need more or larger ovens. To overcome these problems, you could make lots of small plates, but then joining them becomes a problem.

If you could make fabric armor that was just as good a ceramic plate armor (doubtful, but imagine that you could), it is certain to be cheaper and faster to produce, provided you are making enough.

Re:Looks Familiar

[porpnorber]

But why is your goal to make people be afraid of you and "comply"? Isn't the goal to make people friendly towards you and want to have sex/do business/stop setting fire to your cattle?

Dominating people does not make them peaceful or well-disposed towards you. This is an obvious truth that almost every individual learns from personal experience by the time they are seven. I simply do not understand why at the level of national policy, nobody seems to grasp it.

Re:Looks Familiar

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

At least in regards to law enforcement, I find the all black uniforms simply serve to make them look threatening. I understand that in an encounter they don't want to give any impression of vunerability or weakness, but these people are human (most of them, anyway) and their job is to serve the public.

The thing is, in this country we used to have policing by consent. That had some major advantages, not the least of which was that the police commanded the respect of the public they served, and members of the public could generally be relied upon to help them. Today, it's increasingly a them-and-us culture the closer to the top you get, thanks in no small part to an increasing number of silly laws pushed through by politicians but lacking popular support: everything from excessive stop-and-search to "road safety" laws based on cameras and fines rather than real police stopping people who are really dangerous. As the saying goes, any bad law serves to bring all law into contempt, and this has a direct effect on the way the front line beat officers are perceived.

At this rate I'd rather see (visually speaking) the military show up in their respective typical colors than cops in all black. Psychologically, that's kind of scary.

The sad irony of that comment is that the military actually do seem to understand the importance of relating to the people they are there to help. Witness the actions of the British army in Iraq, when they deliberately did things like going out to meet the people there, wearing caps instead of armoured helmets. They have the helmets for when they're needed, but the guys at the top made the decision not to present the face of an oppressor, and for a while it actually worked (and it when they had to switch back, that wasn't the reason).

Compare and contrast with the aforementioned police force, who seem to be actively cultivating a "we're scarier than you are" aura and the fear of the populace rather than their respect. It's the wrong call, IMNSHO, and after letting it go too far for the past few years we're starting to see the backlash both on the street and at political levels. I'm sure they'll look great in those funky face-shields, though. It's very sad.