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Bullet-Proof Sheets of Carbon Nanotubes
An anonymous reader notes a CNN.com report on Nanocomp Technologies, the first in the world to make sheets of carbon nanotubes. "In April, [CEO] Lashmore had a mechanical multicaliber gun shoot bullets at different versions of his sheet, each less than a fifth of an inch thick. ... Army tests show the material works as well as Kevlar. The military also hopes to replace copper wiring in planes and satellites with highly conductive nanotubes, saving millions of dollars in fuel costs."
"Buy Thompson's Carbon Nanotube Bullets. The only nanotubes tough enough to penetrate nanotubes."
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
People also used leather as armor, but so far no one has dug up a leather sword. The physical properties of kevlar as used for armor are entirely different from the physical properties of a good bullet. Kevlar has very high tensile strength allowing it to spread the impact over a large area by deforming and pulling on all the threads around it. With a bullet, you want all the force located in one small, strong, pointy area for penetration; which is why armor penetrating rounds are jacketed or tipped in a metal much stronger than lead or copper(steel, tungsten, depleted uranium).
Orwell was an optimist.
In the 1980s I worked in advanced ceramic materials development for Corning. We were pitching insulating sleeves to be cast into cylinder heads. At a meeting with the Ford SVO engineering group, one of their engineers said "The first thing you hear about a new material is always the best thing you will hear about it. After that, the 'yeah, buts' begin." Yeah, but is it safe? Yeah, but is it affordable? Yeah, but will it conduct / dissipate heat? Yeah, but is it environmentally friendly? It takes time for systems to be redesigned around the special attributes of revolutionary materials.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
All or most armor manufacturers use a table top mounted "test gun" that they can change out the barrel and receiver to fire different caliber to test the protective effectiveness of their product. I don't think anyone can buy one of these you have to get them specially built.
If you ever watch any History or Discovery channel show(s) about fire-arms chances are they show a few of these.
This is so typical. Someone discovers how to make a sheet of carbon nanotubes, and the first thing they do is shoot at it. Where is the study telling us how huggable these nanotube sheets might be?