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Blast-Proof Fabric Resists Multiple Explosions
An anonymous reader tips a Gizmodo story on a fabric whose properties are counterintuitive, to say the least of it. "Zetix is a fabric so strong it will resist multiple car bomb blasts without breaking. It absorbs and disperses the energy from explosions... it can be used in body armor, window covering, military tents, and hurricane defenses... [and] it can be used as medical sutures that won't damage body tissue. All of this is thanks to a property that apparently defies the laws of physics: helical-auxetics, objects that actually get fatter the more you stretch them. The concept makes my head want to explode, but when you see it in action it actually makes sense."
Sutures necessary from the failure of the cloth?
Read the label "Resists, not Proof!"
The concept makes my head want to explode, but when you see it in action it actually makes sense."D'oh!"
"At least we can use the remainder of your suit to stitch you up!"
You should wear a hat made of this material, if not for you, than for those around you.
"I wear fashions from Yves St. Rongbad, in case anything around me asplode!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We should look at it for what it is. For one thing, this won't do anything for bullets (or swords). Another defensive tool, which is a great thing. Offense has been winning out way too much in the race.
According the material on the companies web site (auxetix) one of the applications is for a fabric that changes colour as it's stretched (specifically for cargo webbing). But one application which would be much cooler (and useful for a fair portion of the slashdot crowd) is pants made out of this stuff - They'd change colour to tell you when you've eaten too many pies.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
'iddqd' was unpronounceable and make it less marketable except to some Eastern Bloc countries
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
With scissors I'd presume. Slow moving sharp edges should cut through this easily.
Hopefully bullets and shrapnel, being fast moving, won't.
Corleones?
It is based on the amount of reward you are promised in the afterlife for using the car bomb. A "standard" car blast has a strength of 7 dekavirgins.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
This is hardly new. I've had a something that gets fatter the more you stretch it for as long as I can remember.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"All of this is thanks to a property that apparently defies the laws of physics"
These kind of statements are so frustrating to me...
Saw another kind of body armor on TV called Dragon Skin that's made of interlinked disks that also claim to spread the impact. Took armor piercing rifle rounds without penetration. They put a dummy wearing it on top of a fragmentation grenade and blew it up with no penetration through the vest. Crazy stuff.
Just something we're kicking around at the office. It has a nice "ring" to it, don't you think?
I would never leave home without it.
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
Oh yeah, video of the dragon skin grenade test here
Fabric can resist damage - but the concussion waves (especially lethal in water explosions) will still cause damage.
As an example, there are current studies on the link between multiple concussive explosion attacks on soldiers - a higher proportion of US soldiers in Iraq may in fact develop Parkinsonian diseases as a result of multiple exposures to blasts from car bombs and other similar attacks.
So, this will help with shrapnel and some damage, but will not solve the total risk factor.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"The slow blade penetrates the shield."
Nice video showing and explaining the phenomenon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdkYuLsT7Sc
Armor is not just a single layer of stuff, it is multiple layers. Yes, this stuff by itself is not worth much as armor, but layer it on top of other thigns, and you got something special.
Each layer stops something else. This layer does not break, so it stops penetration. Make a cell structure of this, fill it with something else, like say SAND, and that pressure wave you were so worried about becomes contained. Two layers of a cell structure like this, with sand in between them, and the entire explosive kinetic energy is contained, converted to heat, deflect out, or otherwise dealt with.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Just letting my mind wander - were a Chinese Finger Trap made from this material, would it let go of your fingers as you applied tension?
Prove it.
I'd be thrilled to have a motorcycle jacket and armour made better by this stuff.
More revisionist metric nonsense.
The "standard" car blast is called the akar. One akar is equal to six fekar, and one fekar is equal to twelve virgins. These are long standing traditional measures which are much more natural when planning real attacks, by the way... some of us actually do stuff instead of just talking about it. By all rights, even when using your annoying metric system, a "standard" car blast would be 7.2 of your dekavirgins. However the Car Bomb Unit Naming Institute is overrun by weak-willed idiots who have never blown themselves up to smite their enemy in their lives, and have chosen to spit on the face of this holy tradition by rounding the number to a more "convenient" value. As if any of these guys has ever worn an explosive belt or carried a dead-man's switch. It makes me sick, I tell you.
I really hate that saying. It makes it sound like physics is a religion, where scientists have decided "that's how things work, and that's that" - which is ridiculous. If something "defies" physics, then the laws of physics change to accommodate reality. That's how science works - it comes about based on observation.
Nothing can defy the laws of physics - because physics describes how things work.
Moo.
Force times distance is WORK, not energy. Can you explain the energy of a photon in terms of "force times distance?" Nope.
What matters in this application isn't energy, but momentum. If the fabric could dissipate ALL the kinetic energy of an explosion/bullet as heat, that would be remarkable but not enough. You can't "dissipate" momentum, regardless of what crazy cool materials you come up with.
In the case of a blast shield covering a window, the strength of the fabric against tearing will allow it to transfer the momentum of the explosive blast to the structure of the building instead of allowing it to blow in through the window. But that only works because the fabric is anchored to the building. Wearing such a fabric will prevent debris from penetrating your body but it will not protect you from the concussive force of an explosion or the raw momentum of a bullet.
People have died from internal injuries after being shot while wearing a bullet proof vest. The bullet was "stopped" in a sense, in that it didn't actually ENTER the victim's body but the momentum still kills.
a few things your intellect hasn't realized yet:
1. menace comes from smart and ill-intentioned people as well as just dumb people
2. that tools of war are used by men engaging the defense from those with bad intentions just as much as it is used by those with bad intentions
thought experiment for you: a lunatic comes into town with a samurai sword and starts slashing people. reference recent news from omaha nnebraska if you think this scenario is not a constant danger throughout human existence
1. in society #1, the people calmly stand there, explaining to him, much in your line of thought, of the stupidity of what he is doing. shortly before their jugulars are slashed. the whole town is wiped out. also wiped out with them, is the philosophy of nonviolence
2. in society #2, as soon as the guy raises his sword, a common townsfolk raises his sword, and the only blood spilled is that of the lunatic. the philosophy of prudent use of arms survives
interestingly enough, the philosophy of nonviolence results in more bloodletting and death (scenario #1). paradoxical, but true
darwinistically speaking, nonviolence is a path to extinction. it sounds really nice, but in the reality of human nature and how human nature plays out, you must, UNFORTUNATELY (see, no warmongering here) have constant use of arms close by, to guard from those with bad intent. you will never stop the creation of people with bad intent in this world. if you respect free will, you respect that every once in awhile, someone somewhere will make a horrible choice, and you must guard against that. i suppose you could disallow free will. that's a certain path to nonviolence: a superfascist state. is that superior in your mind than a free but armed society?
peace in this world is not maintained by an absence of armament, peace in this world is maintained by a balance of armament, a constant tension, a potential that is released to restore the balance of peace when an imbalance in fair action occurs by bad intentioned individuals in public settings
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
These materials seem to behave in similar ways as olivene (and some pyroxene's). The chemical bonds bend in certain ways when force is applied in a prefered direction.
And remember, energy dissapation is the sum of all those bonds moving in response to the force applied. A few hundred billion bonds, just moving a tiny bit each, adds up to a lot of energy.
Have a tissue, I think your nose must be stuffy.
In a world of slow-moving shield-fighters, the man with the lasgun is dead, along with anyone within a several-kilometer radius. Pseudo-atomic fusion detonations are bad that way.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I think you mean this video.
Quack, quack.
If your motorcycles explode on a regular basis, you may want to reconsider servicing them yourself......
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
A 160 grain bullet fired from a 30 caliber rifle at 3000 fps (those are rough numbers, and on the high side) has the same momentum as a 175lb man traveling at .4 fps. Momentum is not an issue.
OK, now imagine it stretched over titanium-frame or carbon-nanotube-frame body armor. The trick is to create some tension on the material and some distance between it and the body. You need a frame that can take the stresses of the material and the impacts, and combine that with the stopping power of the material.
Personally though, I'd rather see something like this used in car parts (bumpers, convertible roofs, tires, etc).
Drapes up, captain?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If you're sitting on top of a bomb when it goes off, I don't care what you're wearing... you're toast. If I have to disarm a bomb... I'm either going to succeed, fail & buy the farm, or know I'm going to fail, and walk away. don't give me a suit that keeps me from running if I have to, give me my dykes, a voltmeter, a pair of good running shoes, and a black T-Shirt with big yellow letters:
Bomd Squad Technician - If you see me running, try to catch up!
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
Penny Arcade? Whatever, gramps.
Society #3 has done a good job locking up the lunatics as well as policing the borders to make sure "insane" societies don't attack. Because weapons of mass destruction are difficult to get, the few insane individuals who aren't treated or locked up can do little damage. Rates of death from violent means far below that of natural causes, such as cancer, accidents, and heart disease. This allows the society to out compete the neighboring violet countries, due to extended lifespans, greater time for education, and the rule of law allowing for peaceful dispute mediation.
Looking around, it seems that more and more countries are moving in this direction. I haven't known anyone who died from violent assault, but I've known lots of people who have died of cancer. I know no one who regularly carries a weapon around. The unfortunate part is that this type of society seems to go a bit counter to human nature. Fortunately people are pretty flexible and continue to evolve at a surprisingly fast rate.