DescentBB

Just read about this:

\"ApNano has tested armor said to be five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as any impact-resistant material used in protective gear.

They said the nano-based armor, which stemmed from a new carbon form called Inorganic Fullerenes, withstood the impact.\"

So isn't Fullerenes derived from buckyballs? Anyway sounds like this stuff might make for great body armour.

http://tinyurl.com/8f5z5

woodchip wrote:So isn't Fullerenes derived from buckyballs?

Sort of, it's the same thing. Names are a homage to Buckminster Fuller aka 'Bucky'.

We haven't even scratched the surface - no pun intended - in discovering tough materials. This stuff will look like tissue paper in 20 years.

and only the richest killers in the world will use it.

what we need is armour that everyone can wear. There are some shear thickening fluid armours comming out which are quite promicing.

i may post about them, we'll see.

improved armour leads to improved weapons...

having such protection avalible to everyone just increases demand for a weapon that can breach that protection.

It's interesting how you think about that ... \"we need armor everybody can wear\" ... \"better armor will call for better weapons\" ... around here, nobody thinks they need body armor or powerful weapons in everyday life ...

your life must be pretty boring if you never have any use for body armour

Your life must be pretty boring if you think you need to need body armor to spice it up ...

Speaking of having a boring life, can you knock off the egotistical \"my country is better than yours\" crap plz??

WarAdvocate: no

Diedel: my main interest is not military armour (although they could use the technology just like everyone else), but recreational armour.
\"armour everybody can wear\"

Roide: my comment was directed to someone other than you, young lady Of course, you're almost as much of a tool as certain others, but I generally don't choose to acknowledge the existance of self-important twits without additional justification.

PS: There is no 'e' at the end of my name

edited by me @ 8:43AM to remove unnecessary harshness

WarAdvocat wrote:Speaking of having a boring life, can you knock off the egotistical "my country is better than yours" crap plz??

Uh, oh, the need to get personal ... touchy?

roid,

what do you mean with 'recreational' armor? Body armor for extreme sports, e.g.?

Well, my snowboarding skills don't require such a thing, and it wouldn't be very useful for whitewater kayaking or road cycling ...

Light armor would be good for motorcyclists or mountain bikers (esp. downhill). And you know the road bikers would be all over a helmet that would save them a few grams. It sounds to me like the material might be best applied in bike frames though, or as a strutural element in skis.

One downside about buckyballs is that they are toxic, and they're also difficult to break down, so they may stay in the environment a long time. A lightweight bulletproof vest that emits a cloud of brain damaging toxic vapor when hit wouldn't really be that great. But that's just one scenario, according to this article people are working on making them less toxic, or even having varying levels of toxicity. Hopefully they'll do enough research on the vests that it won't produce another iraq style mystery illness.

http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/3/9/16

I often wondered if Gulf War sickness wasn't caused by spent Depleted Uranium shells;

Imagine how much radiation and dust particles are created from Depleted Uranium rounds... no wonder people got ill.

http://www.citizen-soldier.org/CS09-uranium.html

320 tons of DU dumped in the brief Gulf war. Nice way to get rid of your nuclear waste.

That article states a British company was caught putting very small amounts of Plutonium in shells.

A particle of Plutonium less than the size of a standard period on a page if it gets internal of you,

whether by inhaling or consuming, or getting shrapnel or gut shot, will definitely do you in.

E-Advocat how dare you call me young!

Diedel yeah that's what i'm saying, for stuff like sports.
actaully there is a snowboarding helmet made outof this armour i'm talking about. it looks like a beenie, it's completely plyable too - you don't know it's a helmet until you smack into something and wonder why it didn't hurt.