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The Military Science Technology

Shock-Dissipating Fractal Cubes Could Forge High-Tech Armor (phys.org) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the shockwave-dispersing-materials dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Tiny, 3-D printed cubes of plastic, with intricate fractal voids built into them, have proven to be effective at dissipating shockwaves, potentially leading to new types of lightweight armor and structural materials effective against explosions and impacts. "The goal of the work is to manipulate the wave interactions resulting from a shockwave," said Dana Dattelbaum, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author on a paper to appear in the journal AIP Advances. "The guiding principles for how to do so have not been well defined, certainly less so compared to mechanical deformation of additively manufactured materials. We're defining those principles, due to advanced, mesoscale manufacturing and design."

The researchers tested their fractal structures by firing an impactor into them at approximately 670 miles per hour. The structured cubes dissipated the shocks five times better than solid cubes of the same material. Although effective, it's not clear that the fractal structure is the best shock-dissipating design. The researchers are investigating other void- or interface-based patterns in search of ideal structures to dissipate shocks. New optimization algorithms will guide their work to structures outside of those that consist of regular, repeating structures. Potential applications might include structural supports and protective layers for vehicles, helmets, or other human-wearable protection. The research will be published in the July 2020 issue of AIP Advances.
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Shock-Dissipating Fractal Cubes Could Forge High-Tech Armor More

Shock-Dissipating Fractal Cubes Could Forge High-Tech Armor

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  • No thanks, I don't want forged armor. I'm only taking the real mccoy, injection molded.

    • In the real world, *everyone* is a camper.
      Because you know what you call a non-camper? A dead moron!

      In the real world, everybody hates armchair online warriors.
      Luckily, they never leave their basement. (Aka camp in private life.)

  • Earth has 4 corner simultaneous 4-day TIME CUBE! [wikipedia.org] Now imagine a suit of armor from that.

    • Well, that's four minutes of my life I'll never get back. Or, perhaps each minute was simultan!...no...they're lost.

      • Earth has 4 corner simultaneous 4-day TIME CUBE! Now imagine a suit of armor from that.

        Well, that's four minutes of my life I'll never get back. Or, perhaps each minute was simultan!...no...they're lost.

        The Wikipedia article is a pale shadow of the original site. It went on for days. Consider yourself lucky.

      • or is it forward? Anyway thanks to TIME CUBE you've wasted 16 minutes in just 4 minutes. Or 24 minutes for the 6 faces. Or 32 minutes for the 8 corners....

  • ... but the material they are talking about is just plastic.

    So, uhmm..... not holding my breath for anything special here.

    • There's always Kibo after all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • "just plastic"

      1. And what do you think kevlar is?
      2. Plastic is just polymers of molecules of certain atoms. Arrange those same atoms or molecules differently, and you got something very different.
      2. Do you not even realize that this concept is independent of the material used, and the only point is "arrange your material in this way, and it will be more than five times stronger"?

      Did you forget your coffee? ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        Plastics burn, even kevlar. Thats not a problem for clothing as you can put it out quickly, but its a big problem if you're protecting a vehicle/ship/aircraft with flammable material.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Everyone forgot their coffee...

          3. Do you not even realize that this concept is independent of the material used, and the only point is "arrange your material in this way, and it will be more than five times stronger"?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            And how would you suggest its done with metals or do you know something about metallic crystals that the rest of science doesn't?

            • Not the point.

              And they can do 3D printing with metals now.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fazig ( 2909523 )
              Some advanced laser sintering process perhaps?

              If you haven't heard of this before (although it's far from being a new technique), it's essentially 3D printing using metal dust and a laser to fuse the metal dust particles.

              Of course the underlying problem is that sintered metals aren't very strong to begin with. Even cast iron is stronger than sintered iron, not to even mention forged iron. But perhaps this process can still make it stronger?
              I don't know. I'm not a metallurgist.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          The problem with these kinds of armour is, ageing, how will does it perform over decades. The other big problem, how well does it take a similar impact at the same location, will it block the first round, whilst the second gets through like there is no armour at all (great for corporate profits because the armour has to be replaced every time it is hit or suspected of being hit and of course every ten years or less).

          Now the goal is not to be shot at, to use drones for all the dirty work, by the time your so

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            "No place for the psychopaths to play war games with other people's lives"

            The psychopaths are usually the ones holding the guns rather than making the high level decisions. It takes a certain personality type to kill other human beings up close possibly multiple times day after day and not be affected by it. The further someone is removed from the actual dirty task the easier it is for a more "normal" person to make the decisions.

            If you want an analogy most of us are quite happy eating meat but would have s

            • The are affected by it. Ask one (who is willing to re-live the experience).

            • The psychopaths are usually the ones holding the guns rather than making the high level decisions.

              You'd have to cherry-pick the fuck out of this to back it up. In mother-fucking reality, a cursory look at basic history reveals that the average person compelled forced to wield a weapon - in nearly any conflict, regardless of why - is just that, average.

              The proven psychopaths (sociopaths, really) are almost always the ones calling the actual shots: spooks, brass, politicians, priests, bankers and industrialists.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Viol8 ( 599362 )

                Saying fuck multiple times and usin italics everywhere doesn't exactly shout "watertight argument coming this way".

                "The proven psychopaths"

                Proven where?

                But yeah, people who sign up for a job that could lead to them bombing and/or shooting dead multiple people multiple times are obviously perfectly normal in the head. Not. And don't give me any patriotic BS -there are plenty of patriots but they don't all join the military. There is a BIG difference between defending your country from an invader and invading

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Plastics burn, even kevlar.

          According to DuPont: [dupont.com]

          Kevlar® is inherently flame resistant, but can be ignited (limiting oxygen index of 29). Burning usually stops when the ignition source is removed; however, pulp or dust, once ignited, may continue to smolder. In laboratory testing (Table II-7), fabrics of Kevlar® do not continue to burn when the source of ignition is removed after 12 seconds of contact. Although the glow time increases with the thickness of the fabric, the burn length does not. No "drips" are experienced, which can cause flame propagation, a common problem with other organic fibers.

          Also, Nomex, another plastic, doesn't burn, is very heat-resistant, and is used in PPE for firefighters, etc.

  • Printing one, w'll see how it does.

  • 670 mph? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday July 09, 2020 @03:09AM (#60278176) Homepage

    Thats hardly the multi mach speed most bullets, tank shells and missiles travel at. And unfortunately its easier to improve the killing power of the projectile than improving the resistence of armour. This would probably only buy them a year or 2 before a new generation of projectiles rendered it redundant.

    • Thats hardly the multi mach speed most bullets

      It's not even pistol bullet speeds. A 9mm round (which isn't especially impressive, as pistols go) manages 750 mph. Your typical .30-06 rifle manages 1800+ mph.

      And what kind of idiot does it take to describe bullet speeds in mph? Feet or meters per second....

    • Perhaps "Tanks" aren't the only use for armor.

      Consider Bomb Squad armor. This could lend some safety from a bomb blast, or an IDE hitting a Hummer in the field.

    • What about Motorcycle helmets?

      Car Bumpers?

      Sound Dampening panels?

  • Nope. It won't work until you add some quantum goo dots

  • What they describe sounds like what every YouTuber in a lab coat does these days: 3D print stuff, blow it up and call it a science experiment.

  • Armor? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday July 09, 2020 @05:28AM (#60278352)

    Who cares? What about its use in cars?

  • Chemicals will always offer too much force to simply adsorb over the surface of something as fragile as the human body. It's trivial to make more powerful bullets, there just isn't a huge use for most people. If you have better armor you will create a demand for more powerful payloads. The chemicals and fast expanding gases will win that battle of re-directing force vs making bigger booms. I don't think you can make armor that absorbs more force than we can easily pack into a payload unless the armor is hug

  • First, while inserting the term 'fractal' into the article and headline will almost guarantee more attention, links, and funding to this project, I don't see anything mentioned in TFA as to why FRACTAL shapes in particular are better at dissipating shocks through structures? (In fact, TFA even says that itself: "....Although effective, it's not clear that the fractal structure is the best shock-dissipating design. The researchers are investigating other void- or interface-based patterns in search of ideal

  • Super strong and light, made of compressed wood. Able to stop bullets:

    https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]

  • How much armor do we actually make? But cars are designed to reduce the damage from high speed impacts and we get a lot of them.

  • Rare microscopic photo of this new armour: https://i.imgur.com/4Ty8IzY.jp... [imgur.com]

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