Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel

angrytuna writes "The Economist is running a story about a group of researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Chemnitz, Germany, who've found a way to use an EMP device to shape and punch holes through steel. The process enjoys advantages over both lasers, which take more time to bore the hole (0.2 vs. 1.4 seconds), and by metal presses, which can leave burrs that must be removed by hand."

Comments

What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Taco Cowboy]

And how to protect the workers' health from the bombardments of the EMPs?

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[wizardforce]

Luckily for us, humans aren't terribly good conductors and thus would be essentially unharmed by an EMP.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[MrNaz]

Lead codpieces.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[wizardforce]

Due to the physics of fluid dynamics, a urine stream would largely break apart before it would hit the fence its self and thus a current would have a fairly difficult time traveling up the urine stream to you. More so considering that urine isn't a very good conductor unless it has fairly substantial amounts of various salts in it. I wouldn't do it but it isn't *quite* as deadly as it sounds. See mythbusters' take on the matter.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah man, but you're puttin your JUNK on the line... you shouldn't do that lightly

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[digitalunity]

Nonsense. The human body has an average resistance of 300-1000 ohms. Not great, but far weaker than modern electrical insulation.

Evidence has been shown that some frequencies in the EM spectrum indeed do cause damage to DNA and in some cases that damage is propagated to future divisions of that cell, meaning the damage is permanent.

From an industrial point of view, this is very interesting. Laser cutter machines are expensive to purchase, but upkeep isn't high and they are very versatile. A machine like this doesn't seem to have the versatility of a laser and might even consume more power. Punches are very fast but manual deburring is expensive.

I noticed in the article they said this works based on magnetic repulsion, and also that it works on stainless steels. I'm curious if this works on the largely non-magnetic 300 series SS.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[mcmonkey]

You're the sort of wet blanket who during the space battle scenes of Star Wars leans over and whispers, "There's no sound in space," aren't you?

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[wizardforce]

Nonsense. The human body has an average resistance of 300-1000 ohms. Not great, but far weaker than modern electrical insulation.

The magnitude of the induced current depends largely on the inverse of the resistance for which steel is magnitudes lower than human flesh. That means that the field would need to be truly colossal to do the same thing to a human being that this punch is doing to the steel.

Evidence has been shown that some frequencies in the EM spectrum indeed do cause damage to DNA and in some cases that damage is propagated to future divisions of that cell, meaning the damage is permanent.

ionizing EM radiation certainly. Terahertz can also create bubbles in the DNA helix which can impair proper cell division but there is *zero* evidence that the fields involved in the EMP press do any of this.

I noticed in the article they said this works based on magnetic repulsion, and also that it works on stainless steels. I'm curious if this works on the largely non-magnetic 300 series SS.

The punch works because it induces a current in the metal which creates a magnetic field to oppose the one that induced the current in the first place. It does not depend on the magnetic properties of the metal. This means that roughly anything that is highly conductive like Aluminum, 303 stainless, copper etc. could be punched with the device. Largely non-conductive materials like humans can not be punched with the EMP punch.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[bendodge]

When I was a small boy, I had a friend who lived on a farm. This lad tried it and relayed to me that it's just as bad as it sounds. (Also, in my observation, urine streams do not tend to break apart, and urine also is VERY salty.)

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Normal Dan]

Well there goes my sex drive.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

(...and urine also is VERY salty.)

uhh, thanks for sharing.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[bendodge]

Hey, this is supposed to be a haven for geeks. How can you claim to be a geek or scientist if you've never tasted urine? It is mostly sterile, after all...

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac user I see. It's not a vagina's fault that your father left your overbearing mother.

Try humiliation interspersed with light bondage. She will be such a filthy, dirty, disgusting bitch that the nastiness of her vagina will cease to bother you.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[bmo]

Contrary to the thoughts of George Lucas, no sound in space is much more dramatic.

Stanley Kubrick understood this with 2001.

--
BMO

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first line of dialogue in the movie 2001 a space Odyssey was 23 minutes into the film.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[0100010001010011]

In 99.9% of the cases. However there are exceptions to everything Mythbusters do. There are statistical exceptions to a few of their experiments. Trust me.

When dealing with an electric fence it's best to go and grab it with both hands than tip toe up to it and try and touch it lightly. However I sort of like the feeling of the pulse traveling across my body.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Airborne-ng]

Well when you put it that way...... nah, nvm I'd still do it.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

And where is Stanley Kubrick now? Dead, that's where! That's what you get for being confusing!

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[sortius_nod]

uhhh....

You can get electrocuted by peeing on an electrified fence: confirmed

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[gandhi_2]

humans can not be punched with the EMP punch at present energy levels.

There, weaponized that for you.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[wizardforce]

It's easier just to build a rail gun and be done with it. Why build a device that is capable of several thousand tesla field strength just to weaponize the EMP punch when a rail gun could punch through a tank with similar specs?

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[gandhi_2]

I never claimed it would be efficient, or even tactically advantageous. Just that a human could be hurt by EMP, provided enough energy. Humans are a not perfect resistors.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[gringer]

Except if you read through the link you provided, it says it does work for an electric fence, but not for the third rail of a subway:

• You can get electrocuted by peeing on an electrified thrid rail: busted
• You can get electrocuted by peeing on an electrified fence: confirmed

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[UCSCTek]

"urine streams do not tend to break apart"

Interestingly enough, I have done the appropriate experiment to really determine whether that is true. I was in a bathroom where a strobe light was running (at a science-themed party, no less), and by tuning its frequency, I could get a good view of the nature of my urine stream. Initially it is continuous, but it breaks up into small droplets fairly quickly--perhaps after a foot or so. With the strobe set correctly, the droplets appear almost stationary.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[jamesh]

Wear a tinfoil hat of course. It's not like this EMP can punch holes through metal or anything.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Fred_A]

And how to protect the workers' health from the bombardments of the EMPs?

I'd worry less about the worker's exposition to EMPs than about their loss of hearing from the noise of the holes being punched by this gizmo when the mostly silent lasers are replaced by those things that are likely to be pretty noisy.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[interkin3tic]

Contrary to the thoughts of Stanley Kubrick, no plot in space is much more boring.

George Lucas understood this in the 70's but then forgot it in the 90's.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Kreigaffe]

Why build such a device? .. maybe because punching holes in humans is a lot more awesome than any railgun. Unless it's a planet-shooting railgun. Hmm.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

That really depends on what the director wants to achieve. Silence in space can be more dramatic if you're looking for suspense, sure.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[geekhammer]

Nonsense. The human body has an average resistance of 300-1000 ohms. Not great, but far weaker than modern electrical insulation.

The magnitude of the induced current depends largely on the inverse of the resistance for which steel is magnitudes lower than human flesh. That means that the field would need to be truly colossal to do the same thing to a human being that this punch is doing to the steel.

Evidence has been shown that some frequencies in the EM spectrum indeed do cause damage to DNA and in some cases that damage is propagated to future divisions of that cell, meaning the damage is permanent.

ionizing EM radiation certainly. Terahertz can also create bubbles in the DNA helix which can impair proper cell division but there is *zero* evidence that the fields involved in the EMP press do any of this.

I noticed in the article they said this works based on magnetic repulsion, and also that it works on stainless steels. I'm curious if this works on the largely non-magnetic 300 series SS.

The punch works because it induces a current in the metal which creates a magnetic field to oppose the one that induced the current in the first place. It does not depend on the magnetic properties of the metal. This means that roughly anything that is highly conductive like Aluminum, 303 stainless, copper etc. could be punched with the device. Largely non-conductive materials like humans can not be punched with the EMP punch.

Yeah, we are not carbon or water are we? Of course we are conductive. We just need to be grounded. However, I imagine the scientists insulate the area in such a way that the metal is grounded and the floor humans stand on is insulated. I remember one time walking about one hundred yards from huge electrical wiring that was about five stories up. However the ground was usually near saturated in the surrounding fields. You could hear an electrical buzz in the area, and get a little tingly zap from any metal surface that is in contact with the ground. My guess is the height of the tower, the humidity, and ground water nullified the insulating properties for the electrical wires, therefore allowing some leakage through the metal towers to the ground. With the ground water being high and metal objects being a great conductor and us being so conductive (snicker), when we walked near (without rubber soles) and touched metal, and thus being grounded caused a discharge. We aren't conductive or anything though? Right? Carbon and water brah!

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Contrary to the thoughts of George Lucas, no sound in space is much more dramatic.

Watch the trench run in A New Hope muted.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[nospam007]

Doctors tasted urine for ages until modern labs were invented.

http://www.diabetesinsipidus.org/4di_di_vs_dm.htm

"Diabetes mellitus means, literally, honey-sweet urine (back when doctors would sometimes actually taste people's urine to make a diagnosis). Diabetes insipidus means bland or insipid urine."

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[gafisher]

I admire your EMPathy.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[TapeCutter]

A real scientist would get a post-grad student to taste his urine.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[TapeCutter]

You must be popular at rave parties...

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[BlueStrat]

humans can not be punched with the EMP punch at present energy levels.

There, weaponized that for you.

Speaking of weapons, the tool sounds like it should appear in the beam-weapons list for a MechWarrior 4/Mercs add-on pack under "lostech weapons". Maybe another hardpoint "can-opener" weapon choice to compliment the short-ranged-but-powerful "Assault Laser" (IIRC).

An EMP device that would cut through metals would not do much to a human. It's mainly a matter of energy absorption. For a human-killer, it loses in two ways. The frequency of the EMP energy needed to resonate in metals efficiently enough to punch a hole is far different than the frequency that would best transfer energy to a human body. Even if one were to find the overall best frequency, the human body is a poor inductor as well as conductor. Not only would the weapon need huge amounts of energy, it would be *extremely* short-ranged.

What it *might* conceivably be useful for is as part of a bunker-buster type weapon to penetrate extremely thick armor after a shaped charge ahead of it clears possible rock & debris. It could prove more useful than conventional shaped-charge, formed-rod penetration system when the target has very thick armor.

The EMP punch system, if used as an armor-piercing system, has the potential to time the length & frequency of the pulse, the shape of the pulse, pulse strength, as well as possibly firing two rapid pulses, enabling it to efficiently penetrate extreme armor thicknesses and be optimized on-the-fly to differing armor types, since pulse frequency, strength, number, and shape are all variables that conceivably be set by a human before launch, or by a targeting computer that uses the weapons' sensors to automatically adjust it up to last-second for best results.

All this fantasy of course assumes having the ability to store sufficient energy onboard to operate it while being small & light enough to be practical. We ain't there, yet.

Strat

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[TapeCutter]

Lemme guess, you have watched 2001 but have never read it.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

A real thesis advisor gets his graduate students to _suck_ his urine, not merely taste it.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[AmonTheMetalhead]

A real scientist would get that post-grad student to taste the urine of the whole staff, to see if there is a difference between gender, age, race and diet. Oh, and he'd get more then one post-grad to do that, or else your pool of results would be to insignificant

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Razalhague]

...because muting a piece designed to be shown with sound is guaranteed to give you an accurate estimate of the dramatic possibilities of soundless space.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Why would i want to watch A New Hope?!

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Dan541]

I would be more concerned about the steel support structure of the building.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Right, just turning sound off in space doesn't automatically make it more dramatic. We agree.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[jack2000]

Why a rail gun? They are awfully inefficient after just several shots your railgun is fried. Build a gaus gun(also known as Coilgun), same idea less friction.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[jack2000]

No need to store energy just make use of Explosively pumped flux compression generator. In a few words it's an emp generator that uses highexplosives, single use instant emp.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[jack2000]

Eerie choirs in space are even more dramatic.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[rossdee]

In the book, the action takes place near saturn, and the moon Japetus. The film stops at the Jovian system and Europa.

Reading the book after seeing the film is just as confusing as without reading the book..

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[hughk]

Third rails are about 750V with lots of amps but animal fences are like 10KV with almost no current. The third rail is a lot more dangerous but the urine path is high resistance.

As someone said, its volts that jolts but mills (as in mA) that kills!

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an observation, though...if the gaps are less than the airgap resistance for the fence charger, you'll still get the piss literally zapped out of you.
Unless the globules are more than 1.52mm apart for the typical 5-10 mile charger, weighing in at 7.5kV, you're going to get bit pissing on the fence.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[ElectricTurtle]

You're evicted from /. Please turn in your geek card on the way out.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[ColdWetDog]

Eerie choirs in space are even more dramatic.

Especially if you can stick them all in the airlock at once and then toss them out.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[torkus]

Yeah, we are not carbon or water are we? Of course we are conductive. We just need to be grounded. However, I imagine the scientists insulate the area in such a way that the metal is grounded and the floor humans stand on is insulated. I remember one time walking about one hundred yards from huge electrical wiring that was about five stories up. However the ground was usually near saturated in the surrounding fields. You could hear an electrical buzz in the area, and get a little tingly zap from any metal surface that is in contact with the ground. My guess is the height of the tower, the humidity, and ground water nullified the insulating properties for the electrical wires, therefore allowing some leakage through the metal towers to the ground. With the ground water being high and metal objects being a great conductor and us being so conductive (snicker), when we walked near (without rubber soles) and touched metal, and thus being grounded caused a discharge. We aren't conductive or anything though? Right? Carbon and water brah!

I'm sorry but do you have *any* clue what you're talking about?

First off, carbon and water are conductive but not exceptionally so.

Being grounded has NOTHING to do with conductivity.

Your suggestion about insulating the floor is quaint, but unrelated. This device uses an electromagnet to induce a current in a conductive material...which makes that material a magnet...which is repelled from the electromagnet. There's no current flow between the electromagnet and target metal. aka no lightning bolts

As for your example about high voltage wires...to start those wires are NOT insulated and the rest is cute but unrelated to multi-tesla-field electromagnets. But to bring a slightly more related talking point up...you know what a MRI is? Yeah, you lay inside a strong magnetic field. The machine that surrounds you? One big freaking 'uge superconducting electromagnet. Somehow it manages to avoid killing us.

So while humans *can* conduct current our bodies are more akin to a resistor.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Hurricane78]

While I agree with your general view,

but there is *zero* evidence that the fields involved in the EMP press do any of this.

You know that this is a logic fallacy do you?
Zero evidence does not equal zero effect. It can. It can not. You just don’t know. That is what “zero evidence means”. It is no argument for either side.
So please don’t employ the techniques of the very loonies you want to counter with your comment. :) It only puts you in the same bag of crazy people. Whether you’re crazy one way or the other really doesn’t matter. ;)

Another good example is how most doctors think:
When they simply don’t know how to heal, they will often say something like “it’s impossible, there is no cure”.
Which is the same fallacy. Because they obviously don’t know it there is a cure that they simply haven’t found yet. Or worse: Don’t know about, or choose to ignore.
You rarely see a doctor say the honest words “I just don’t know.“. I mean, after all he’s just a human too. Nothing bad about not knowing everything.

But acting as if you know everything, if it’s you, your “opponents” or doctors, is always a bad idea.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Hurricane78]

About the not breaking apart: Try that on the south pole! ^^
*pling* *plingpling* *pling*

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[gyrogeerloose]

I've had a couple of unfortunate encounters with electric fences. They are very unpleasant to say the least but in no way lethal. Lots of volts but very little current. It takes about 50 microamperes at a minimum of 30 volts to make a lethal dose for a human and it's only lethal if that current flows through directly through the victim's heart. The zap administered by an electric fence of the type used for animal control is typically about 10KV but at only 4-5 microamperes and lasts for about 10 microseconds. Most modern electric fence chargers use capacitive discharge through an induction coil to develop their high-voltage potential so the shock only lasts as long as it takes to discharge the capacitor.

Of course, there are other types of electric fences, ones that are designed to be deadly--urinate on the fence surrounding a prison at your own peril.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Arthur Grumbine]

The first line of dialogue in the movie 2001 a space Odyssey was 23 minutes into the film.

Good point. Counterpoint: Star Wars Holiday Special.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[interkin3tic]

I read some of the later books, but right, not 2001. I am of the opinion however that a movie has to stand on it's own, without reading the book it was based off of.

I did say "Kubrick" not "Clarke."

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[TapeCutter]

We read the book at school in the early 70's not long after the movie was realesed and then watched the movie in class. As another poster said the movie stops at Jupiter. The phycodelic stuff at the end is supposed to represent a new dawn of mankind as does the ape scene at the beginining. The basic plot is that god is an alien, even as a 12yo I enjoyed it but then again I've always been attracted to weird movies.

In otherwords I think Kubrick's movies do stand on their own and are well worth taking the time to understand, particularly clockwork orange and 2001, ymmv.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rave parties? Isn't that redundant? It's just a rave. No need for the "party" qualifier there, ace.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[TapeCutter]

I was going to call it a disco, now I just want you to get off my lawn.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[smellsofbikes]

Nonsense. The human body has an average resistance of 300-1000 ohms..

Speak for yourself, sweaty one. Here in Colorado, I average about 200,000 ohms. My coworkers, when we test (we're all electrical engineers) are all over 5k and mostly in the 50-100k range, but I'm always colder (and less sweaty) than anyone else in my office.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[digitalunity]

Theres an IEC standardized resistor-capacitor module to simulate human body resistance. I believe it has roughly 10,000 ohms of resistance.

It's used to measure leakage current in appliances and medical devices primarily.

Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are the kind of posts that make me a Slashdot addict. I commend you

PPC

[Theodore]

PPCs, PPCs, blasting all the way... (ok, enough of jingle bells).

an alternate past

[drDugan]

The article focuses on how this is a more "peaceful use" for the EMP. I disagree: when the robot apocalypse finally arrives, and a rogue T800 drives after you in into a steel mill, it will be damn useful to have an EMP device used for shaping steel rings handy to stop the cybernetic killing machine. As an added benefit, an EMP would destroy the cpu, meaning no Cyberdyne Systems, and I get my 5 hours back wasted on T3 and Terminator Salvation!

The mechanical press was, like, so 1984.

Re:an alternate past

[ByteSlicer]

If I remember correctly, in T2 they said the T1 CPU was broken, but just by studying the design they got a technological head start. Melting it in a steel furnace did the trick in T2. But that still didn't stop T3 from being made. Mainly because Hollywood wanted another sequel, I guess.

Longevity?

[afidel]

The site the wear on machine dies as a factor, but what's the expected number of discharges that these super-capacitors can be expected to survive, the coils?

Re:Longevity?

[wizardforce]

The capacitors can probably take several million discharges before there's any "wear" on them however the coils must withstand some degree of stress repeatedly which is a concern over the long term due to metal fatigue.

Weapon?

[X-Power]

If it can burst through steal, couldnt it burst through human flesh aswell?

Re:Weapon?

[wizardforce]

No. Human flesh is not terribly conductive and thus would not experience anywhere near the induced field that a conductor like steel would. The only exceptions would be if you had metal in you like a pacemaker.

Re:Weapon?

[dierdorf]

Humans are not usually very magnetic. You've already been hit with a pulse from an extremely powerful superconducting magnet if you've ever had an MRI.

Re:Weapon?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that occupational hazard specialists wouldn't recommend kissing one; but the ability of a strong magnetic pulse to deform a material depends on that material being conductive enough to have an induced current and a (temporary) magnetic field of its own. Metals qualify, humans are pretty iffy.

Humans, being gooey sacks of largely salt-water, are slightly conductive and they do do some electrical signalling internally; so a very strong magnetic field could well have an effect(TMS exploits this fact to noninvasively alter the function of brain tissue). A very strong magnetic pulse to the brain could have odd effects, a very strong pulse to the heart might be an issue, and a really strong pulse just about anywhere might be enough to cause electrical flailing or burns.

That said, though, the weapon potential would be absurdly poor. Magnetic field strength falls off quite quickly with distance, so you would need some truly heroic equipment to have any effect on somebody more than a few centimetres away. You'd be much better off simply discharging the capacitor bank through the victim rather than the coil. Or just hitting them with a wrench.

All the alternatives to good old-fashioned chemical propellants and sharp objects face serious challenges on the road to practicality; but strong magnetic fields aren't even in the same league.

Re:Weapon?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not too bright, are you?

Re:Weapon?

[wizardforce]

The device works because it induces a current in the conductor (steel in this case) which creates a magnetic field which opposes the field that caused the induction in the first place. This is why you could also punch through non-ferrous metals like Aluminum with the EMP "press." The reason it wouldn't punch a hole through a human is entirely due to the fact that we are poor conductors of electricity which means that it is essentially impossible to induce an electric field strong enough to allow the device to punch a hole.

Re:Weapon?

[Dr. Spork]

I'm wondering just how much a strong magnetic field like this could accelerate a bullet-like metal object.

Re:Weapon?

[The Wild Norseman]

Humans are not usually very magnetic.

Are you sure? There are some humans that I have found to be highly repulsive...

Re:Weapon?

[bmo]

The upper limit on a .45ACP is 21,000psi or 1,400ATM.

The "EMP press" generates 3,500ATM.

--
BMO

Re:Weapon?

[mysidia]

How about disabling their vehicle, or punching a hole in their tank to facilitate an ambush or use of other weapons?

Re:Weapon?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Very considerably indeed...

(TFA gives no real sense of how much power is involved in their setup, so it is hard to say how much accelerating it could be made to do; but magnetic accelerators in general are capable of impressive velocities. Though, much to the dismay of science-fiction fans everywhere, they require vast amounts of electricity, so handheld versions of any practical use are awaiting the invention of some treknobabble power source.)

Re:Weapon?

[khallow]

To add something new to what the other repliers have said, human body is mostly transparent to EMP. It's not mostly transparent to bullets, knives, and a variety of other lethal tools. The EMP punch wouldn't add anything new to the huge list of ways to deliberately kill people.

Re:Weapon?

[xonar]

hehe

Re:Weapon?

[gandhi_2]

I think the land mine, man-portable anti-armor weapons, and IEDs in all their forms will probably fill that gap more economically for the foreseeable future.

Re:Weapon?

[mysidia]

What if you want to capture your target for questioning, or imprisonment / ransom, rather than blowing them up?

So you blow a hole in their tank and then hit them with nerve gas to temporarily stun them, so you can slap the cuffs on and haul them to the tortur^H^H^H^H^H^H interrogation chamber.

Re:Weapon?

[Jello B.]

Go back to myspace.

Re:Weapon?

[TubeSteak]

The upper limit on a .45ACP is 21,000psi or 1,400ATM.

The "EMP press" generates 3,500ATM.

My understanding is that pressure is mostly a function of your gun's strength and/or the hardness of the bullets you're using. If you use high pressure bullets in a weak firing chamber, ka-blooey. If you use 'soft' bullets with a lot of grains, the bullet will deform and your gun will possibly go ka-blooey.

IIRC, 50,000 psi (~3,400 ATM) is the upper limit for most rifle and handgun rounds, although 65,000 psi rounds are used for test purposes.

Re:Weapon?

[selven]

Go back to gmail DOT com.

Re:Weapon?

[durrr]

Magnetic fields in MRIs are static, you are however hit by RF pulses but of no comparable energy to the magnetic field.
If the magnetic fields in MRIs were rapidly pulsed or rotated your brain would share the probably unplesant experience of what induction coils suffer daily. That is, abnormal currents would be generated along the nerve fibers(which just happens to be conductors).

Re:Weapon?

[SEWilco]

I'm wondering just how much a strong magnetic field like this could accelerate a bullet-like metal object.

You've already been advised not to kiss one, so you should be safe from whatever it does to your metal dental fillings.

Re:Weapon?

[hughk]

A standard inductive hob unit in a domestic kitchen can pump out a KW or two - but you pass a hand over it without problems - thats if you could defeat the safeties. If you move a pot away, the unit switches off instantly - pretty useful in case you move your hand with a watch or ring over it.

Re:Weapon?

[hughk]

Funnily enough someone came out with this little toy. Not exactly a killing machine but not bad. There are several others too.

Portable Railguns are more difficult due to the need for sustained power, but it is fairly trivial to make a charging circuit and use capacitors to provide the field. So, why doesn't someone take this and up its power with a backpack or something into a real killing machines - well something that currently a small explosive charge to accelerate a projectile can do much better.

Re:Weapon?

[xonar]

I'm sorry that I'm a musician, and that this offends you.

Re:Weapon?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the alternatives to good old-fashioned chemical propellants and sharp objects face serious challenges on the road to practicality; but strong magnetic fields aren't even in the same league.

ObFuturama:

Robot General: The human was impervious to our most powerful magnetic fields, yet in the end he succumbed to a harmless sharpened stick. Heh heh heh.

Fembot Wendy: I'm just glad the nightmare is over.

Robot General: It'll never be over, Wendy. Even now, humans are lurking in our playgrounds, our breezeways, perhaps even... our movie theaters!

Fry: God help us!

Re:Weapon?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The trouble with something like that is the size of this equipment and the requirement for extremely close proximity. Electromagnetic forming machines are large industrial devices. Given that the steel-punching version is an enhancement of the existing models, with greater power, we are probably talking something that you could just about move with a forklift(possibly after breaking it down into a few parts). Further, they are large industrial devices that need to be plugged into mains power in order to work. It would be a very rare battlefield where you could manoeuvre a several-hundred-pound piece of machinery, along with a power cord or generator, right next to a hostile vehicle.

This compares very unfavourably to even the sorts of cheap and semi-obsolete anti-armour weapons that float around the world's lower budget warzones, not to mention the contemporary stuff.

Re:Weapon?

[Jello B.]

HEHE

Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine

[snikulin]

He is our governor now, you insensitive clod!

Not a new idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a terribly new idea. I watched video of this technique being used to cut, punch and shape steel over 30 years ago. In fact the video demonstrated punching a hole in steel through a sheet of paper leaving the paper untouched. The only thing that has changed is the technology in the capacitors.

Hard to see it being practical

[peacefinder]

I won't say never, because people who say "That'll never be practical!" are inevitably made to look like idiots at some point. That said, it's hard to imagine this working well for punching applications.

This process seems to have some inherent disadvantages for punching holes. Compared to an ordinary turret punch, the tooling will be very expensive and will take a tremendous amount more power to operate. It is also not clear if EMP tools will be able to punch arbitrary shapes, or how the press would operate in an industrial setting without damaging its own working area or doing Something Unfortunate with the waste metal, or if it can operate at anything like the speed of a flywheel-driven punch. The may of course be certain applications where it will become valuable or even indispensable, but for general-purpose punching, I don't see it.

For forming applications it's a very interesting idea, though.

Re:Hard to see it being practical

[Anonymous Coward]

> The may of course be certain applications where it will become valuable or even indispensable, but for general-purpose punching, I don't see it.

I'm sure someone will figure out a use. Then the operating costs will be characterized like they have been for every other manufacturing method.
Excellent!

Re:Hard to see it being practical

[Hadlock]

They don't mention how this compares to high pressure water jets, which I would assume is both faster and cheaper than laser, and doesn't leave any burrs. I'm not an expert in sheet metal forming, so someone feel free to correct me, but while I'm sure EMP will have very specific uses in the future, hydro-cutting will remain a better option in 99% of situations for the forseeable future.

Metal presses

[zygotic mitosis]

Not all burrs left by a punch press need to be removed by hand. Small pieces may be burnished, rotoblasted, or vibratory finished. Still takes time, I guess.

Re:Metal presses

[fahrbot-bot]

Small pieces may be burnished, rotoblasted, or vibratory finished. Still takes time, I guess.

I once had a girlfriend like that - and you guess correctly.

Re:Metal presses

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Plus the rotoblasting makes me dizzy.

Article Has No Meat.

[bmo]

Hi. I'm a metalworking professional, with a heavy background in tool and die work.

>metal presses, which can leave burrs which must be removed

The burr side, if you've got sharp tooling, doesn't have much of a burr. Also, when you assemble the product, the burr side goes away from the user. Speaker grille material, for example, is always mounted on the finished speaker burr side in. If you've got a large burr punching holes in steel, then you have dull tooling and/or wrong punch-to-die clearance.

>.2 seconds per hole

Too slow. Much, much too slow. Call me when it can equal 600 strokes a minute on a conventional press.

>by hand

Someone's never heard of tumbling, flame deburring, electrochemical mass finishing, etc.

>This article is written as if there's no tooling involved and there's no die or stripper plate to back up the steel as it's distorted by the EMP. It goes on to say that it can do away with molds. LOL QUE?

Total misunderstanding by the journalist.

--
BMO

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[bmo]

To follow up, a conversion error by the journalist:

Pressure of 3500 atmospheres.

That's not 3 small cars. That's 17.5 Volkswagen Golfs (2010).

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

600 stroke a minute ... by hand? .... That's what she said

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Belisar]

Are you sure?

An atmosphere is defined as roughly the pressure exerted by one kilogram of mass in Earth gravity on one cm^2. The article claims the area is also around one cm^2 large, so that means the mass would be about 3500 kg. A 2010 VW Golf weighs about 1,451kg, so this would actually be less than 3 cars.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[wizardforce]

According to my source a typical Volkswagen Golf 2010 Rabbit weighs 3100–3250 pounds or 1410-1480 kg (rounded) and since 1 atmosphere is very nearly 10N/cm^2 and a 1 kg mass exerts ~10N force we can conclude that 3500 atmospheres is like balancing ~2 and 1/2 Volkswagen Golf 2010 rabbits on a 1cm^2 area. So the journalist wasn't that far off from the truth this time.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[bmo]

Yeah, you're right, I did a weird conversion with english measurements.

In a square inch it's 17.5 VW's

--
BMO

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[nacturation]

>by hand

Someone's never heard of tumbling, flame deburring, electrochemical mass finishing, etc.

That's great if your part doesn't have a very high tolerance. If you're machining pieces for the aerospace industry, those methods will totally ruin the part.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[X0563511]

If you are doing parts for the aerospace industry, I'm betting you won't be doing 600 strokes/minute with dull tools, either.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[bmo]

>implying there's no such thing as precision deburring.

http://www.burlyticsystems.com/

>implying that finishing ruins parts

Get out.

--
BMO

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? THis is the 21st century and we have the metric system. Take your foot-pound-slugs and get the fuck off my planet!

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[adamofgreyskull]

Have you considered working for NASA?

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[bmo]

Oh look! I'm not perfect!

Before you jump up and down, at least I know not to pollute my cad database with different versions of the same files, like Airbus.

Dohohohoho!

--
BMO

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[grimJester]

>.2 seconds per hole Too slow. Much, much too slow. Call me when it can equal 600 strokes a minute on a conventional press.

600 a minute is .1 seconds per hole, not so far from .2. Did you misread it as 2? Presumably a process without physical moving parts can be speeded up more easily as well.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

All hail the new slashdot measurement.
Volkswagons per square inch/centimeter!

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure is 4chan and greentext here.

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

so 60 seconds / 600 punches (or strokes) = 0.1 seconds per hole.

Does any of this 'tumbling, flame deburring, electrochemical mass finishing, etc.', presumably not required with the EMP, less than the difference of 0.1 second per hole?

Re:Article Has No Meat.

[inKubus]

That could be their new motto:

"Have you considered working for NASA(tm)?"

Wont be long now

[Anonymous Coward]

Minituarize this and you got yourself a very strong gun with no bullets that can go through metal walls. Target won't know what hit him/her.

Re:Wont be long now

[Dr. Spork]

You might hurt the metal wall, but if the target is itself not metal, it will be quite unharmed. But maybe you could use a focused EMP like this to accelerate a bullet down a (non-conductive) barrel? That would be pretty cool.

Re:Wont be long now

[armanox]

Isn't that the idea of a rail gun?

Re:Wont be long now

[wizardforce]

A rail-gun is named such because it utilizes two rails to send current through the projectile its self which induces a current that creates a magnetic field that opposes (repels) the one that created it and thus accelerates the conductive projectile along the conductive rails. The design requires that the rails be conductive.

Re:Wont be long now

[__aajfby9338]

You might hurt the metal wall, but if the target is itself not metal, it will be quite unharmed.

If you can manage to get a chunk of that metal wall to hit a target on the other side, they may not be quite so unharmed. Many antitank weapons, for example, are designed to cause the interior surface of the tank's armor to spall, such that the resulting flying pieces of the tank's own armor shred the equipment and people inside the tank. It's even necessary to fully penetrate the armor in order to induce spalling (i.e., with HESH ammunition).

Re:Wont be long now

[__aajfby9338]

Typo: I meant "It's not even necessary to fully penetrate the armor...".

Re:Wont be long now

[X0563511]

A coil gun, by contrast, does not. The term rail/coil is often exchanged, even though they are completely different ways to do the same thing - electrically accelerate a projectile.

Re:Wont be long now

[Anonymous Coward]

If the target is itself not substantially stronger than metal, they'll be substantially pounded with the slug you punched out of the metal wall, no?

But to the GP's point about a "gun with no bullets that can go through metal walls" -- my cork gun has no bullets that can go through metal walls, too. Nothing new here.

Water jet?

[sunderland56]

Everyone I know in the metal manufacturing field is currently using water jet technology to cut holes. Easier, cheaper, and neater than lasers; and cuts any arbitrary shape, unlike a die punch. And - very importantly - safe for the operator.

So how come no comparison in TFA with water jet? EMP doesn't sound like it can do intricate shapes, and they're only going through very thin steel. Why replace a proven inexpensive technology with a new inferior one?

Re:Water jet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why replace a proven inexpensive technology with a new inferior one?

Because we've never done it before. That's why people do research (in theory...).

Re:Water jet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a water-jet at a university, but I prefer a laser cutter or plasma cutter for CNC work. The water-jet is a pain to keep running. High pressure air and water, tubes, orifices to replace, mixing tubes that wear out, water filters, etc. Maintenance nightmare. I prefer to just have to clean the optics once in a while on a laser cutter and I can tell you that the laser cutter we have cuts much sharper than our water-jet.

The advantage of the water-jet? Will cut 4" of ANYTHING for one thing, and it will cut the brittles like glass and ceramics and stone that the others will not. Also rubber - I cut a lot of rubber with it.

Cheers.

Re:Water jet?

[atamido]

Also rubber - I cut a lot of rubber with it.

I feel like there's a great joke in here that I can't quite put my finger on.

Possible propulsion?

[DJRumpy]

Someone help me out here as I'm not a physicist, but if this machine produces enough physical force to punch a hole through steel, does it offer any possibility of being used as a propulsive force?

Re:Possible propulsion?

[wizardforce]

What you are thinking of is called a railgun which works along the same principle only this time the metal projectile isn't tethered to anything.

Re:Possible propulsion?

[DJRumpy]

Not necessarily a rail gun, but specifically the fact that this can produce enough physical force to actually punch through the metal. what happens if you unhinged this 'punch' so that it wasn't anchored and ramped up the force at a slower pace?

I realize this specific implementation would need metal to interact with, but I have to wonder if they can and will eventually learn to interact with gravitational fields from objects like the earth itself.

Re:Possible propulsion?

[wizardforce]

The field strength falls off considerably as you move away from the metal target which means that the force applied on the metal also dropps off rapidly. As for interacting with gravitational fields (I assume you mean manipulating them) with our current physics knowledge, manipulation of gravitational fields isn't possible to ny degree that is really useful. You can however, if you create a strong enough magnetic field, repel agaisnt the Earth's magnetic field (100+ teslas) however this is a very strong field far beyond what we can maintain currently.

Re:Possible propulsion?

[Kral_Blbec]

its called a monorail

Re:Possible propulsion?

[camperdave]

I doubt it would be very effective. Here's what's happening. A large power source builds up a charge in a bank of supercapacitors. This charge is fed into a coil, generating a magnetic field. The coil induces an equal but opposite field in the steel. The two fields repel each other, and since the coil is fixed in place, the steel under the core of the coil gets flung out of the way.

Now, if you had the large power source, the supercapacitors, the massive coils, and the supply of steel out in space, the whole shebang would indeed be moved by the steel slugs moving away. However, due to the mass of the "engine" and the weak "thrust", the whole thing would be impractical. In short, the device is a coil gun. You'd get more thrust out of a magnetoplasmadynamic device (same basic parts, but vapourize the steel instead of punching out holes. Higher velocity==more thrust).

The main problem, as with all electric rockets, is the power source. You need megawatts of power to get a few hundred measly newtons of thrust. That kind of power source does not come light. You need a nuclear reactor, or hundreds of square metres of solar panels. Massive.

Re:Possible propulsion?

[hitmark]

the comparison to a railgun is probably more correct then first thought of.

when i think about it, this EM-punch is basically just a railgun without the ammo. Or rather, the ammo is outside the "gun".

basically, one is building up a EM pulse so fast and so focused that one push parts of the metal out of the way faster then the surrounding metal can adapt, and it tears.

if the setup is designed correctly, the same system can potentially bend and punch just by adjusting focus and strength. A quick brainstorm suggests a grid of coils that's individually adjustable so that if one need a bend one use a number of them at lower power, but a hole takes just one or two at max.

Re:Possible propulsion?

[TapeCutter]

its called a monorail

And there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!

Re:Possible propulsion?

[Anonymous Coward]

monorail magnets are very close to their opposing metal surface
to fly or float via magnetism or manipulating gravity would require HUGE amounts of power
like plugging in to a nuclear power station

Sharks...

[De-Jean7777]

...with frickin' EMP attached to their heads!

And only requires one small fusion reactor!

[distantbody]

to power the damn thing. Go Iter!

Is the laser comparison fair?

[tjstork]

I have to ask the question, if, the EMP can punch so much faster than the laser, couldn't the guy that makes the laser just make one that is more powerful, and therefor, cuts faster? It seems to me that this comparison in the article is more of a selling pitch than a legitimate comparison of EMP vs the laser for metal working.

Re:Is the laser comparison fair?

[wizardforce]

No. The problem with laser cutting is that when the laser vaporizes material off of the target, the vaporized material obstructs the beam to a degree which fundamentally limits the rate at which the laser can cut. Another concern is that lasers aren't the most efficient things at converting power into the coherent laser light necessary to cut through metal. It may be more efficnet from an energy standpoint to use the EMP punch rather than the laser.

Re:Is the laser comparison fair?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can only cut so fast with laser do to the properties of the metal under cutting force. Is the old cookies in the oven. Directions say 350 for 15 min so 500 for 6 min is the same thing right? Wrong. If the power is turned up that increase in energy needs to go somewhere. The properties of the metal can only diffuse that so quickly. To fast and you ruin the edges of you blank. Machining 101 BTW

Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine

[TheLink]

Better check whether the state's budget problems are due to a slightly excessive allocation to Cyberdyne Systems via front companies or dummy government departments.

The Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad we are learning how to manipulate an EMP, so that when it becomes the only weapon we have against the machines, we can use it without having to turn off our hovercraft.

Magnetic forming

[Animats]

This, as the article points out, is basically a beefed up version of magnetic forming. Magnetic forming has been around for decades. It's useful mostly for compressing cylindrical objects, so it's used on couplings, tube joints, and similar round objects I've seen it used in making hydraulic spool valves. It's a way to apply a completely symmetric radial squeezing force, which is hard to do at high precision with stamping dies or presses. Here are some examples of parts formed by magnetic forming.

But for punching holes, there's no obvious advantage to magnetic forming.

media!?

[alienzed]

pics or gtfo

Bye bye ID cards and RFID passports

[cheros]

"Your passport doesn't work, sir"
"Oh sorry, I work in a metal factory. I guess the passport ought to have had shielding"

Oh yes - probably deniability..

No video in the article

[Alain Williams]

Quite apart from potentially being fun to look at, it would have really helped to see a short clip of this in action. It could have informed things like: how thick the metal, how wide the hole, ...

Who's worried about holes in humans?

[reiisi]

I don't think holes being punched in human flesh are the concern.

Uhm, to us, all of biology is odd.

[reiisi]

So, no, the female human sex organ is no more of a biological oddity than the male human sex organ. Very much the usual thing in the biological universe.

It's only our ideals that have issues with the supposed oddities of the biological world.

How to protect the workers?

[SEWilco]

I suspect that the metal safety shields are how to protect the workers. If a hole is punched through a safety shield, it's probably time to turn off the machine.

Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine

[mforbes]

Could be worse. You could have the governor where I live... you know, the one whose staff thought he said "I'll be hiking the Appalachian Trail" when what he actually said was "I'll be getting some Argentinian Tail."

Car analogies FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

The impact pressure on the steel is about 3,500 atmospheres. That is the weight of three small cars pressing on an area only a centimetre or so square. FTA

Three small cars punching holes in a big car! This is better than Transformers.

Shrinking Coins

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is another example of electromagnetic forming.

To experience a more "fun" application of this technology, check out this link on shrinking coins and crushing cans:

http://205.243.100.155/frames/shrinkergallery.html

Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine

[Anonymous Coward]

He's Republican, what do you expect? Whenever a Republican runs on "family values" they're most likely cheating on their wife/shootin' heroin/some other crazy shit.

Re:stop the cybernetic killing machine

[Hurricane78]

Interestingly, after above treatment, he also is an actual real insensitive clod. ;)

Licensing

[Tibor the Hun]

Has fraunhofer institute elaborate how they intend on recouping their cost for this EMP technology?
By each machine or by each hole punched?
Their record with MP technology is somewat shaky, to pardon the pun.

Also, wrongly named - It's just a solenoid!

[evanh]

A better name might be Magnetic Punch. There's nothing amazing about it. They are just magnetising the steel as part of a solenoid. Like a motor or rail-gun.

And yep, it'll still be forcing the steel through a punch tool. So, burring will still occur. Just a case of speed and strength, no different to any other punch.

OT Dark Star

[Anonymous Coward]

My favourite Carpenter film. As my partner said on first seeing it, it is so not Star Trek.