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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."
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.
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.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
He is our governor now, you insensitive clod!
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.
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.
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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.
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.
(...and urine also is VERY salty.)
uhh, thanks for sharing.
Contrary to the thoughts of George Lucas, no sound in space is much more dramatic.
Stanley Kubrick understood this with 2001.
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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
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.
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.
humans can not be punched with the EMP punch at present energy levels.
There, weaponized that for you.
THL phish sticks
"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.
I once had a girlfriend like that - and you guess correctly.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.