Slashdot Mirror
New Magnesium-Alloy Foam From NYU's Nikhil Gupta Floats On Water
Jason Koebler writes: A new class of magnesium-alloy syntactic foam, which is made out of hollow particles to lower its weight and density is one of the strongest metals for its weight and density ever developed, which makes it ideal for use in boats. Developed by Nikhil Gupta at NYU Polytechnic University, the alloy is 44 percent stronger than similar, aluminum-based foams, and each individual sphere within the foam can withstand pressure of more than 25,000 pounds per square inch before breaking, which is roughly 100 times the pressure exerted by water coming out of a firehose. Gupta's foams are currently used by the Navy and he suspects this one will be ready for use in warships within three years.
Holey Floating Metal Batman!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
How flammable is this foamed magnesium alloy?
A warship full of foamed magnesium would go up like a flare. It even incorporates its own oxidizer in the foam, in the air spaces. Unless they're forming the voids with inert gas.
Unless they've paid some special attention to the flammability issue, a combat vessel made with this stuff would make the Forrestal look like a birthday candle.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I'd wonder about this foam's use in a boat, since I remember the high-school demo where the teacher lit a magnesium ribbon on fire.
Magnesium is very incompatible with water, and could corrode away very quickly if it got wet. Plus it is rather flammable, with water accelerating its burning. I'm not sure that I'd want a lot of this on a warship that can be expected to be hit by enemy fire. It would go up like a flare.
... a new unit of measure. Pressure described as scalar multiples of "the pressure exerted by water coming out of a firehose."...
In the US, 250 psi would be a bit much for the pressure coming out of a fire hose. 100 psi would be much more typical nozzle pressure. We test our hoses to around 300 psi, but I'd hate to be the nozzle man at 250 psi. (to get 250 psi at the nozzle, you'd have to be pulling a 2 1/2" hose) Depending on hose length, you'd be looking at somewhere around 300 GPM at 250 psi on a 2 1/2" hose.
No. 515—PUBLIC COMMENT ON INFLATION MEASUREMENT
AND THE CHAINED-CPI (C-CPI)
April 8, 2013
Click Here for Link to: SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT—CHAINED-CPI
________
Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s
So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience
CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.
________
PROBLEMS WITH INFLATION ESTIMATION
This public comment updates No. 438—Public Comment on Inflation of May 15, 2012, reviewing the nature of inflation understatement by the U.S. government’s statistical agencies and the rationale and approach used by ShadowStats.com in compiling the ShadowStats Alternate Consumer Inflation measures. While the following text includes new material, the concepts all have been explored in earlier writings. Most of the prior Comment has been repeated, including some material from the September 2008 Response to BLS Article on CPI Misperceptions. – John Williams
Real-World Experience and Public Perceptions versus Academic Theories and Political Gimmicks
In the last 30 years, a growing gap has been obvious between government reporting of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), and the perceptions of actual inflation held by the general public. Anecdotal evidence and occasional surveys have indicated that the general public believes inflation is running well above official reporting, and that public perceptions tend to mirror the inflation experience that once was reflected in the government’s formal CPI reporting.
The growing difference in perception versus reality primarily is due to changes made over decades as to how the CPI is calculated and defined by the government. Specifically, changes made to the definition of the CPI and related methodology in recent decades have reflected theoretical constructs offered by academia that have little relevance to the real-world use of the CPI by the general public. Importantly, the public usually has not been aware of or understood these changes.
What the Public Looks for in an Inflation Measure
Individual need for and use of a CPI measure generally is tied to personal financial decisions or planning, in terms of wage or income growth/adjustments, contract or benefit price adjustments and/or in terms of targeting financial returns that would stay ahead of inflation.
Accordingly, individuals look to the government’s CPI as a measure of the cost of living of maintaining a constant standard of living, as well as measuring that cost of living in terms of out-of-pocket expenses. Without meeting those parameters, an inflation measure has limited, if any, use for
Even a brick will float if you coat it with silicone. And you can boil an egg in a paper bag. News at 11.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
tow3ls o8 the floor
Anybody ever been to a party where someone throws an old VW engine block on the bonfire?
... I mean, the metal isn't actually lighter than water... it just has lots of bubbles in it. I mean... I could tie a helium balloon to a brick... but I'm not actually making the brick lighter am I?
You could foam anything anything and make it lighter.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Zeps were made from aluminium too and they floated in air. What is so fancy about floating in water?
They should make a lump of phosphorus foam and try floating it on water.
The idea of a metal-air hybrid object that has a density less than water is already quite well developed. It is typically called a boat or ship. Some of them even have integrated air-cell buoyancy systems in the form of polystyrene blocks.
Indeed based on his claims, it would appear this material (apparently "one of the strongest metals for its weight ever developed") would be much more important to the aviation industry.
A fiberglass boat is stronger. Fiberglass is orders of magnitude stronger.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I think you mean sulfur hexaflouride.
--PM
Umm...
https://xkcd.com/678/
No. As an example steel normally contains iron carbides instead of free carbon in solution.
Some are as you state but most alloys used are not just solutions of one element dissolved in another.