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

but

[Anonymous Coward]

can you make better internets out of these tubes?

Re:but

[Nullav]

Actually, according to TFA, networks can indeed be made using a series of tubes.

But the new material could also find applications in the area of hi-tech "smart" clothing, bomb-proof refuse bins, flexible solar panels, and, eventually, as a replacement for copper wire in transmitting electrical power and signals.

I could really see a use for such a resilient material in the more earthquake-prone areas, as opposed to fiber which would probably snap in a lot of situations.

Re:but

[ILongForDarkness]

One of my fellow students in university (I have a physics degree, he had double major physics, applied math, followed with MSc (Physics), PhD Math, a fairly bright guy ;) ), anyways, his PhD thesis was solving electron quantum states in carbon nano-tubes. Properties he mentioned were, they are superconducting in one direction, and have total internal reflection (what causes fiber optics to be useful). So yes they will make a better internet. They also could make better electronics in general (no resistance = electrons moving as fast as they possibly can with the applied voltage).

multiple uses?

[master5o1]

So, i'm wearing this suit... it's broad daylight and i'm charging my phone and stuff from the solarpanel effect that the nanotube suit has. I see a bomb, take my suit off, wrap it around the bomb. Waahoo! I just saved the day and charged my phone at the same time!

Re:multiple uses?

[Entropius]

Think the army is actually going to make 200k suits of this stuff?

A better way to stop people from getting shot in wartime is to not be in stupid wars.

Re:multiple uses?

[cumin]

You distinguish "stupid wars," but somehow I'm not convinced that everyone will agree with you about which ones are stupid. If I'm going to get shot at, yeah, I want one of these and I don't care who thinks the war is stupid or whether it is technically a war or not. I care about not dying.

Re:multiple uses?

[bhiestand]

Carbon nanotubes are *expensive* to manufacture. If the resources spent outfitting the entire infantry with these were instead spent on preventing unnecessary wars, the military would have a better way of delaying dying. 1) Boy armor isn't just for "the entire infantry"
2) War is inevitable. It is the military's job to survive the war, defeat the enemy, and come home to their families/jobs/communities
3) It's nice to have stuff that will save your life when war happens

Hell, a better way to save the lives of infantrymen would be to take the money spent on nanotube armor and instead spend it on twice as many troops. Sure, that sounds like a great idea. While we're at it, let's just sell their current body armor so we can quadruple the number of troops. And maybe if we take away the rest of their equipment, we can have tens of millions of troops! That worked well for other countries in the past, right?

The only people who really benefit from this sort of thing are the contractors who fiddle with it. Not the people who survive getting shot or having an IED explode outside of their armored vehicle.

If this stuff does become widespread the main impact on the world scene will be an upswing in business for Kalashnikov, as everyone replaces their aging AK's with the new higher-caliber models capable of penetrating American armor. Congratulations, you appear to have learned something about the history of military weapons and countermeasures.

And to respond to your entire post, you are exactly the kind of person I was talking about. You have no idea what you're talking about, and want to turn a technical discussion into a political one. The whole point of America's military system is that increased communication, technology, equipment, and training reduce the number of soldiers you need to accomplish an objective. This lowers the financial and political costs in the long run. Nearly every service member deployed to a combat zone SHOULD have body armor regardless of whether or not you think they should be in the combat zone. Every service member who COULD deploy to a combat zone should have a full set of body armor and IPE sitting somewhere with his name on it. Otherwise you end up with the situation where only soldiers who can afford to buy their own get to take body armor to war.

So if you want to drop the political garbage, appeals to emotion, and nonsense, let's talk about the merit of nanotube armor. Surely if this armor was only slightly more expensive than the current materials, it would be worth it. If it cost $20m a set, it wouldn't be. Of course, we don't have any of that information because this article is really a "hey, cool new tech coming eventually" article. In other words, it's not worth getting your panties ruffled over, and certainly not worth making a fool of yourself over.

Looks Familiar

[DumbSwede]

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. One key to waging war is to dehumanize the enemy in the eyes or your citizens and fighting force. It will be far easier for our adversaries to paint our troops as inhuman.

Re:Looks Familiar

[rastilin]

It doesn't look any different from the armour already worn by SWAT teams. The only real difference between this and the normal soldier's armour, to me at least, is the face plate. You could remove that if you were ok with shrapnel in the eyes.

Re:Looks Familiar

[ozmanjusri]

It doesn't look any different from the armour already worn by SWAT teams.

Exactly.

Enforcer types from dystopias, just like the GPP said.

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:Looks Familiar

[Fred_A]

The motorcycle style helmet does hint at "low budget dystopias" though.

Re:Looks Familiar

[Loke the Dog]

True, and there's more to it. Inhuman beings are more frightening than humans, and if you feel inhuman, you will not feel a need to act like one.

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?

Re:Looks Familiar

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Your troops are enforcer types in a dystopian reality. While I'm always thrilled to see advances in materials science, and happy to see people that little bit safer, if your troops just stayed home we could use their armor for solar panels and I'd be even happier.

Re:Looks Familiar

[Entropius]

No, I'd find some way to get rid of them that didn't involve small-arms fire.

Re:Looks Familiar

[ben0207]

Sorry everyone, he gets like this when his tinfoil hat is on too tight.

Re:Looks Familiar

[Chris Mattern]

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.

Yes, because an all-white uniform is so much friendlier.

Chris Mattern

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.

Pointless

[Kamrom]

Why develop new body armor, when our soldiers still can't get the stuff made several years ago?

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:Pointless

[jefu]

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.

Most taxpayers are already paying for the war and associated expenses. I suspect many would be not displeased to put money into actually saving troops rather than (to pick a couple of examples) paying mercenary armies who don't pay their own taxes, or paying corrupt contractors building the US embassy with (semi-)slave labor, or paying the CIA to run secret prisons where they can torture with impunity, or paying Haliburton so Cheney can make a profit.

Bomb disposal bins

[wlad]

...so that's where they dispose of used bombs?

Exposed bits..

[bigattichouse]

It isn't the bits behind the vest that are the problem anymore (mostly). Its the arms legs and brain that are getting all the damage.

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.

Sooo...

[Fred_A]

Will it blend ?

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?

Re:Only part of the problem.

[MSZ]

Also don't forget remote-controlled injector of stimulant+painkiller+adrenaline, so that, at the press of the button, they would rise, dripping blood and shredded guts, and attack the enemy without mercy. Then we'll only need a fluffy white cat to be delivered to the commander of such Legions of Doom.

Now seriously, some of what you propose could probably be done. I doubt that it would be really efficient, as these tubes aren't big enough to hold a significant amount of whatever substance inside.

Re:Only part of the problem.

[Chris Mattern]

You'll need 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene to reserach the Stim Pack upgrade.

Chris Mattern

Wearing enough

[Strange Ranger]

No matter the material, body armor only works when you wear enough of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/politics/07armor.html

Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for additional protection to stop bullets from slicing through their sides. In the fall of 2003, when troops began hanging their crotch protectors under their arms, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several hundred plates to protect their sides and shoulders. Individual soldiers and units continued to buy their own sets.

And a year and a half later (after above article):
http://www.bakesalesforbodyarmor.org/

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.

No need for nanotubes.

[muttoj]

nano tubes will in some cases exceed the performance of Kevlar. New existing materials as Dyneema and Taeki5 already exceed the performance of kevlar by a long shot.

I Call Bullshit

[TheThirdRider]

Or at least partial BS. I work at a nanotube R&D lab and one of the things we're working on (which I am personally involved with) is making carbon nanotube thread. I've read over and discussed the very paper that is mentioned in the article; also I've looked at what the University of Texas at Dallas is doing. Pulling SWCNTs (single walled carbon nanotubes) from a furnace does not create the same level strength due to the tight wrapping of CNTs as using van der Waals forces present in aligned MWCNTs (multi walled carbon nanotubes) when pulling thread from an aligned forest of nanotubes. While the individual tubes are stringer than almost anything, they do not adhere well to each other and tend to slide apart when in a rope. C They may have some fibers that are stronger than Kevlar, I've made some myself infact. But it was only that strong in comparison when measuring Young's modulus because it was so small as to be neutrally buoyant in air and nearly invisible to the human eye. And, unfortunately, so far that strength doesn't scale. So, yes they probably have made super fibers, but I highly doubt they are usable for the applications they are claiming.

Why keep repeating this meme?

[Soulfader]

Everyone has at least an Interceptor vest. No American service member goes overseas without one. I'm in the National Guard, and even us bastard red-headed stepchildren of the war effort get full IBAs with the side plates and shoulder shrapnel protection--more armor than most of us want or need.

(More on the IBA.)

Yes, there are newer and better things out there. And many troops are wearing them already--or were when I was in Afghanistan last year. Presumably more have them now. Could they get the newer and better stuff to the troops faster? Perhaps. Look into it. Make a valid argument. But stop trotting out the old "troops can't get any armor" BS.