Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Nanotube Body Armor Coming Soon

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Oct 27, 2007 08:03 AM
from the suiting-up dept.
The Military Science
s31523 writes "Military and law enforcement agencies are constantly seeking better protection in the line of fire, but current armor is heavy and bulky. The University of Cambridge has developed a new type of carbon fiber made up of nanotubes that is some cases exceeds the performance of Kevlar. The new material has other potential uses as well, from bomb disposal bins to flexible solar panels."
+ -
story

Related Stories

Submission: Nanotube Body Armour Coming Soon by s31523 (926314)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Nanotube Body Armor Coming Soon 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • but (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:12AM (#21139431)
    can you make better internets out of these tubes?

    • Re:but (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nullav (1053766) <moc@[ ]mg.valluN ['lia' in gap]> on Saturday October 27 2007, @04:40PM (#21143035)
      Actually, according to TFA, networks can indeed be made using a series of tubes.

      But the new material could also find applications in the area of hi-tech "smart" clothing, bomb-proof refuse bins, flexible solar panels, and, eventually, as a replacement for copper wire in transmitting electrical power and signals.
      I could really see a use for such a resilient material in the more earthquake-prone areas, as opposed to fiber which would probably snap in a lot of situations.

      • Re:but (Score:4, Informative)

        by ILongForDarkness (1134931) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:55PM (#21144577)
        One of my fellow students in university (I have a physics degree, he had double major physics, applied math, followed with MSc (Physics), PhD Math, a fairly bright guy ;) ), anyways, his PhD thesis was solving electron quantum states in carbon nano-tubes. Properties he mentioned were, they are superconducting in one direction, and have total internal reflection (what causes fiber optics to be useful). So yes they will make a better internet. They also could make better electronics in general (no resistance = electrons moving as fast as they possibly can with the applied voltage).
  • So, i'm wearing this suit... it's broad daylight and i'm charging my phone and stuff from the solarpanel effect that the nanotube suit has. I see a bomb, take my suit off, wrap it around the bomb. Waahoo! I just saved the day and charged my phone at the same time!

      • Re:multiple uses? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Entropius (188861) on Saturday October 27 2007, @10:47AM (#21140349)
        Think the army is actually going to make 200k suits of this stuff?

        A better way to stop people from getting shot in wartime is to not be in stupid wars.
        • Stop picking on Bush.

          He had to invade Iraq to drive oil prices to a new record high. This while his family is in the oil business.

          That dose NOT look stupid to me. Callus and selfish perhaps but not stupid. Don't let his speech dysfunction fool you. For all we know that is a well rehearsed act to stop people from looking to carefully at his self serving "dumb" decisions.
        • Unfortunately, we're not in a war. No war has been declared. I believe it's a resolution.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by cumin (1141433)
          You distinguish "stupid wars," but somehow I'm not convinced that everyone will agree with you about which ones are stupid. If I'm going to get shot at, yeah, I want one of these and I don't care who thinks the war is stupid or whether it is technically a war or not. I care about not dying.
          • The majority of Americans are in agreement about this one, and the overwhelming majority of the most educated Americans are in agreement.

  • Looks Familiar (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DumbSwede (521261) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:18AM (#21139465) Homepage Journal
    I know it's inevitable and I want our troops protected, but its ironic how much this looks like the garb worn by the enforcer types in dozens of dystopia movies. One key to waging war is to dehumanize the enemy in the eyes or your citizens and fighting force. It will be far easier for our adversaries to paint our troops as inhuman.

    • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rastilin (752802) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:38AM (#21139577)
      It doesn't look any different from the armour already worn by SWAT teams. The only real difference between this and the normal soldier's armour, to me at least, is the face plate. You could remove that if you were ok with shrapnel in the eyes.

    • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy (457657) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:42AM (#21139609)

      I know it's inevitable and I want our troops protected, but its ironic how much this looks like the garb worn by the enforcer types in dozens of dystopia movies.

      They're just fitting in with the modern trend. In the time I've lived here in Cambridge, the average police uniform has gone from the friendly, lots-of-white Police Service garb to the almost-all-black Police Force look of today. This has, of course, been happening in parallel with the systematic erosion of individual rights and increases in summary powers for the police, all with the backing of both our national government and, in some cases, our local councils. It would be sadly ironic if police officers became even more invulnerable^Wisolated due to an invention from our very own university.

      • Yes.. The designers of police uniforms incorporate reflections of "erosions of individual rights etc" into their uniforms.

      • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:5, Funny)

        by Chris Mattern (191822) on Saturday October 27 2007, @11:31AM (#21140625)

        In the time I've lived here in Cambridge, the average police uniform has gone from the friendly, lots-of-white Police Service garb to the almost-all-black Police Force look of today.


        Yes, because an all-white uniform [geocities.com] is so much friendlier.

        Chris Mattern

        • At least in regards to law enforcement, I find the all black uniforms simply serve to make them look threatening. I understand that in an encounter they don't want to give any impression of vunerability or weakness, but these people are human (most of them, anyway) and their job is to serve the public.

          The thing is, in this country we used to have policing by consent. That had some major advantages, not the least of which was that the police commanded the respect of the public they served, and members of the public could generally be relied upon to help them. Today, it's increasingly a them-and-us culture the closer to the top you get, thanks in no small part to an increasing number of silly laws pushed through by politicians but lacking popular support: everything from excessive stop-and-search to "roa

    • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Loke the Dog (1054294) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:47AM (#21139633)
      True, and there's more to it. Inhuman beings are more frightening than humans, and if you feel inhuman, you will not feel a need to act like one.

    • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:4, Interesting)

      by vertinox (846076) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:56AM (#21139677)
      It will be far easier for our adversaries to paint our troops as inhuman.

      That may have benefits as well. Would you shoot something that doesn't look human and you aren't entirely sure they are going to die? If the enemy appeared to be immortal cyborgs that your (apparently) puny weapons had no affect on, would you not just be afraid of them and comply?
      • No, I'd find some way to get rid of them that didn't involve small-arms fire.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by porpnorber (851345)

        But why is your goal to make people be afraid of you and "comply"? Isn't the goal to make people friendly towards you and want to have sex/do business/stop setting fire to your cattle?

        Dominating people does not make them peaceful or well-disposed towards you. This is an obvious truth that almost every individual learns from personal experience by the time they are seven. I simply do not understand why at the level of national policy, nobody seems to grasp it.

        • Are you honestly saying that you would? If NATO comes up with an army of supermen and starts enforcing international law on everyone, you'll just smile and say "thank you?"

          Thats not really what I am saying. Its more about psychological warfare. During WWII the US/British were horrendously afraid of Tiger tanks and would freak out and drop anything they were doing when they saw one. Of course considering that most of their guns were ineffective over the 500 meter distances, you could just imagine the dismay

    • Re:Looks Familiar (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anomolous Cowturd (190524) on Saturday October 27 2007, @09:20AM (#21139827)
      Your troops are enforcer types in a dystopian reality. While I'm always thrilled to see advances in materials science, and happy to see people that little bit safer, if your troops just stayed home we could use their armor for solar panels and I'd be even happier.
    • You are quite right...

      But if you live in the People's Democratic Republic of (formerly Great) Britain you must surely already realize that you already live in a dystopia. The police in the streets here already wear body armor and are already watching everyone on big brother cameras.

      Add to that: no right to freedom of speech, no right to freedom of assembly, thought crime, Government controlled media, mind control by fear generation through creation of irrational abstract enemies like pedophiles, etc,
    • It will be far easier for our adversaries to paint our troops as inhuman.
      Right now, our adversaries paint us as Americans being lead by an idiot that we voted for. When they looked down the sight, the do not see something inhuman. They see an American. And at this moment, they HATE us.

  • Pointless (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kamrom (609839) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:23AM (#21139493)
    Why develop new body armor, when our soldiers still can't get the stuff made several years ago?

    • Re:Pointless (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! (33014) on Saturday October 27 2007, @09:14AM (#21139787) Homepage Journal
      For one thing, because it simply isn't true that we can't get it to them. We just can't supply them at the rate we ought to at the price we are willing to pay. It boils down to the fact that the number of lives saved isn't worth it to the US taxpayer, or at least the ones that vote.

      For another, just because it is "got to them" doesn't mean it stays got. Every time a ceramic armor plate takes a bullet, it ought to be replaced. Even just being knocked around can probably weaken the armor. Durability is the reason the flexible glued ceramic disk armor might not be the best choice for an environment like Iraq.

      For yet another, fabric based armor makes it possible to protect areas that you can't with ceramic armor: the hands, the head. There was a report on NRP about the unusual number of fatalities suffered by police this year. The bad guys have adjusted to the fact that the police wear body armor and take a head shot before the cop realizes he needs to draw his gun.

      Finally, production of fabric armor an probably be scaled more cheaply than ceramic plates. You start with a vat of organic goo, draw threads out of it, spin them into thread and weave them into garments. You can make as large a "plate" as you need by setting up long warp yarns and weaving a longer strip of cloth. Think of a set of drapes: you could produce armored drapes if you wanted to. By contrast with ceramic you have to fire each plate in an oven. To make a larger plate, you need a larger oven and presumably getting a uniform result is trickier. To ramp up the production line, you need more or larger ovens. To overcome these problems, you could make lots of small plates, but then joining them becomes a problem.

      If you could make fabric armor that was just as good a ceramic plate armor (doubtful, but imagine that you could), it is certain to be cheaper and faster to produce, provided you are making enough.

      • Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jefu (53450) on Saturday October 27 2007, @10:37AM (#21140287) Homepage Journal

        It boils down to the fact that the number of lives saved isn't worth it to the US taxpayer, or at least the ones that vote.

        Most taxpayers are already paying for the war and associated expenses. I suspect many would be not displeased to put money into actually saving troops rather than (to pick a couple of examples) paying mercenary armies who don't pay their own taxes, or paying corrupt contractors building the US embassy with (semi-)slave labor, or paying the CIA to run secret prisons where they can torture with impunity, or paying Haliburton so Cheney can make a profit.

        • If you put it that way, of course, virtually all US taxpayers would agree.

          However, I submit that until the voters aren't swayed one way or the other on an issue by how it is framed, they don't really care about that issue.

          There isn't a clear dividing line, of course, because the framing always matters a little. It is a matter of degree, but even so it is perfectly possible to detect clear disinterest or clear interest in many cases. Most voters, for example, truly care about their own taxation rate. It
    • Everyone has at least an Interceptor vest. No American service member goes overseas without one. I'm in the National Guard, and even us bastard red-headed stepchildren of the war effort get full IBAs with the side plates and shoulder shrapnel protection--more armor than most of us want or need.

      (More on the IBA [globalsecurity.org].)

      Yes, there are newer and better things out there. And many troops are wearing them already--or were when I was in Afghanistan last year. Presumably more have them now. Could they get the newer and better stuff to the troops faster? Perhaps. Look into it. Make a valid argument. But stop trotting out the old "troops can't get any armor" BS.

  • Bomb disposal bins (Score:4, Funny)

    by wlad (1171323) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:32AM (#21139547)
    ...so that's where they dispose of used bombs?

  • Exposed bits.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by bigattichouse (527527) on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:42AM (#21139603) Homepage
    It isn't the bits behind the vest that are the problem anymore (mostly). Its the arms legs and brain that are getting all the damage.

    • Sadly, it is the bits behind the vest that are the problem for several British troops killed in places like Iraq each year because they hadn't been supplied with the right body armour or had been required to return it so other troops with greater perceived need could have it.

      I'm no fan of the war in Iraq or the politicians behind it, but if we're going to send our boys and girls into a dangerous situation like that, you'd think giving them the best equipment available would be the least we could do. Hopef

    • Why Solar Panels??? What does this have to do with generating power?
      Is it because the oil-crazy nuts would shoot at the solar panels???

      On a more serious note, a Gel nanotube would better absorb the shocks.

  • Sooo... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fred_A (10934) <fred.fredshome@org> on Saturday October 27 2007, @08:48AM (#21139637) Homepage
    Will it blend ?
  • Listening to an NPR program on battlefield recovery, I got to thinking how the soldiers on the field could be given a better chance for a full recovery if they recieved medical care sooner. Well, they're already getting emergency treatment to stabilize them within 30 minutes. But if they got it sooner, well just imagine. So I got to thinking, what would any soldier have with them that could administer treatment incase of wound? Why, their armor. Let's take these nano-tubes for a moment, and "fill them"

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by MSZ (26307)
      Also don't forget remote-controlled injector of stimulant+painkiller+adrenaline, so that, at the press of the button, they would rise, dripping blood and shredded guts, and attack the enemy without mercy. Then we'll only need a fluffy white cat to be delivered to the commander of such Legions of Doom.

      Now seriously, some of what you propose could probably be done. I doubt that it would be really efficient, as these tubes aren't big enough to hold a significant amount of whatever substance inside.
        • sure, but don't forget the weight.
          liquids are awfully heavy and modern soldiers already need to lift so much equipment that their body weight doubles.
    • You'll need 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene to reserach the Stim Pack upgrade.

      Chris Mattern

  • Wearing enough (Score:5, Informative)

    by Strange Ranger (454494) on Saturday October 27 2007, @09:03AM (#21139719)
    No matter the material, body armor only works when you wear enough of it.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/politics/07armor.html [nytimes.com]

    Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for additional protection to stop bullets from slicing through their sides. In the fall of 2003, when troops began hanging their crotch protectors under their arms, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several hundred plates to protect their sides and shoulders. Individual soldiers and units continued to buy their own sets.


    And a year and a half later (after above article):
    http://www.bakesalesforbodyarmor.org/ [bakesalesf...yarmor.org]

  • Health Concerns (Score:3, Interesting)

    by failedlogic (627314) on Saturday October 27 2007, @09:04AM (#21139725)
    Might there not be a health concern/issues with nanotube or nano-anything (yes that was technical!), being used? Their structures are so small our immune systems can't block it and it might adhere to cell walls more than we
    'd ever want to. Wearing such body armor, which would stop speeding bullets, IEDs, mines, rockets from injuring soldiers might not be a good idea. The injury from the enemy fire might not be the only concern.

  • No need for nanotubes. (Score:3, Informative)

    by muttoj (572791) on Saturday October 27 2007, @09:21AM (#21139835)

    nano tubes will in some cases exceed the performance of Kevlar.
    New existing materials as Dyneema and Taeki5 already exceed the performance of kevlar by a long shot.
  • Buckyballs have a tendancy to shred your lungs. If a "bullet proof" vest made of this stuff took a hit and saved a person's life, the resulting expulsion of material from the vest might create a toxic cloud which would just as readily kill the wearer (and anybody else nearby).

    --
    This space for rent

  • I Call Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheThirdRider (956714) on Saturday October 27 2007, @10:37AM (#21140285)
    Or at least partial BS. I work at a nanotube R&D lab and one of the things we're working on (which I am personally involved with) is making carbon nanotube thread. I've read over and discussed the very paper that is mentioned in the article; also I've looked at what the University of Texas at Dallas is doing. Pulling SWCNTs (single walled carbon nanotubes) from a furnace does not create the same level strength due to the tight wrapping of CNTs as using van der Waals forces present in aligned MWCNTs (multi walled carbon nanotubes) when pulling thread from an aligned forest of nanotubes. While the individual tubes are stringer than almost anything, they do not adhere well to each other and tend to slide apart when in a rope. C They may have some fibers that are stronger than Kevlar, I've made some myself infact. But it was only that strong in comparison when measuring Young's modulus because it was so small as to be neutrally buoyant in air and nearly invisible to the human eye. And, unfortunately, so far that strength doesn't scale. So, yes they probably have made super fibers, but I highly doubt they are usable for the applications they are claiming.
  • "stronger than kevlar in some instances should not be necessarily be taken as a great leap forward.

    For a while now there have been products that significantly out perform kevlar strength wise. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7038702.stm

    In fact this is not even the first time that such stuf has been discused on slashdot http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/23/1817216

    There are also many common materials that outperform kevlar in some applications, including technora, which is commonly used in

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.