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Blast-Proof Fabric Resists Multiple Explosions

Posted by kdawson on from the does-this-fabric-make-me-look-fat dept.

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."

6 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Mind the label by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    and] it can be used as medical sutures that won't damage body tissue.

    Sutures necessary from the failure of the cloth?

    Read the label "Resists, not Proof!"
    "D'oh!"
    "At least we can use the remainder of your suit to stitch you up!"

    The concept makes my head want to explode, but when you see it in action it actually makes sense.

    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
  2. I'm confused. by Gigiya · · Score: 5, Funny
    From TFA:

    The fabrics can ... be deployed in containment systems, military tents, ballistic mosquito nets and body armor, a $2 billionpret-a-porter market.
    What?
  3. I claim prior art by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  4. Video of Auxetic material by jupitersspot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nice video showing and explaining the phenomenon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdkYuLsT7Sc

  5. Re:Energy dissipation by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Informative
    Some people here simply do not understand how armor works. So they think "this thing won't protect you, because it doesn't stop the energy/pressure, it just doesn't break".

    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
  6. Re:Is there an SI-unit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.