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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."
PPCs, PPCs, blasting all the way... (ok, enough of jingle bells).
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.
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?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Luckily for us, humans aren't terribly good conductors and thus would be essentially unharmed by an EMP.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
He is our governor now, you insensitive clod!
Lead codpieces.
I hate printers.
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.
-- John Dierdorf, Austin TX
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.
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.
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.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
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.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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?
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.
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.)
The government can't save you.
I'm wondering just how much a strong magnetic field like this could accelerate a bullet-like metal object.
Well there goes my sex drive.
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
(...and urine also is VERY salty.)
uhh, thanks for sharing.
Isn't that the idea of a rail gun?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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...
The government can't save you.
to power the damn thing. Go Iter!
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.
This is my sig.
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.
Contrary to the thoughts of George Lucas, no sound in space is much more dramatic.
Stanley Kubrick understood this with 2001.
--
BMO
Humans are not usually very magnetic.
Are you sure? There are some humans that I have found to be highly repulsive...
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
The upper limit on a .45ACP is 21,000psi or 1,400ATM.
The "EMP press" generates 3,500ATM.
--
BMO
How about disabling their vehicle, or punching a hole in their tank to facilitate an ambush or use of other weapons?
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.)
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).
Typo: I meant "It's not even necessary to fully penetrate the armor...".
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.
hehe
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.
Well when you put it that way...... nah, nvm I'd still do it.
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.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
uhhh....
You can get electrocuted by peeing on an electrified fence: confirmed
humans can not be punched with the EMP punch at present energy levels.
There, weaponized that for you.
THL phish sticks
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?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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.
THL phish sticks
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.
THL phish sticks
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.
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:
Ask me about repetitive DNA
"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.
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.
Wear a tinfoil hat of course. It's not like this EMP can punch holes through metal or anything.
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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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.
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.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Go back to myspace.
That really depends on what the director wants to achieve. Silence in space can be more dramatic if you're looking for suspense, sure.
pics or gtfo
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
"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..
Insert
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.
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.
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!
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, ...
Contrary to the thoughts of George Lucas, no sound in space is much more dramatic.
Watch the trench run in A New Hope muted.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think holes being punched in human flesh are the concern.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
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."
I admire your EMPathy.
A real scientist would get a post-grad student to taste his urine.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You must be popular at rave parties...
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
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
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Lemme guess, you have watched 2001 but have never read it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Go back to gmail DOT com.
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).
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.
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
...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.
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."
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
You've already been advised not to kiss one, so you should be safe from whatever it does to your metal dental fillings.
Why would i want to watch A New Hope?!
I would be more concerned about the steel support structure of the building.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Right, just turning sound off in space doesn't automatically make it more dramatic. We agree.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
Eerie choirs in space are even more dramatic.
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..
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!
See my journal, I write things there
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.
See my journal, I write things there
You're evicted from /. Please turn in your geek card on the way out.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
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.
See my journal, I write things there
I'm sorry that I'm a musician, and that this offends you.
Especially if you can stick them all in the airlock at once and then toss them out.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
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? :) It only puts you in the same bag of crazy people. Whether you’re crazy one way or the other really doesn’t matter. ;)
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.
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.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
About the not breaking apart: Try that on the south pole! ^^
*pling* *plingpling* *pling*
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Interestingly, after above treatment, he also is an actual real insensitive clod. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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.
This ain't rocket surgery.
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.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
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."
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.
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
I was going to call it a disco, now I just want you to get off my lawn.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
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.
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