G.I.'s get armor add-ons.

Originally posted by wlee15

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Spider silk's tensile strength is such that it can withstand weight of up to 300,000 pounds per square inch.

Dragline silk is the component of a spiders web that radiates from the centre of the web. Its strength and toughness are unparalleled by any man-made fibre. It is in fact three times tougher then aramid fibre and has a strength five times greater then steel on a per weight basis.

Spider silk is way stronger then anything man has created



spiders silk long being viewed as the holy grail of materials science

[edit on 11-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

High grade Kevlar can withstand approximately 3.4 GPa of pressure or 493000PSI. Certain Nylon polymers can also withstand approximately 300000PSI as well. In addition the strongest man made material is of course carbon nanotubes which managed to reach 63 GPa or 9.1 million PSI.

Some things might be stronger like carbon nano tubes but are they as flexible and as strong as spider silk. Thats the beauty of spider silk Its extremely strong but its really flexible at the same time.

I have yet to see any man made substance that gets the best of both worlds as spider silk has it.

what Nylon polymers are you talking about i have never heard of that level of strength in a Nylon polymer.

Reading around, on and off the web, we get a lot of facts about the strength of spider silk that sometimes seem contradictory, although they all agree that spider silk is way stronger than any other silk or natural material. Here are some quotes.

Paul Hillyard says in The Book of the Spider 1994. "For an equal diametre, spider silk is stronger than steel and about as strong as nylon. It is, however much more resilient and can stretch several times before breaking - it is twice as elastic as nylon and more difficult to break than rubber. The energy required to break spider silk (its 'toughness') is about ten times that of other natural materials such as cellulose, collagen and chitin. Dragline silk (about .00032 inch (.008 mm) in Nephila) is especially strong - approximately twice that of silk from silkworms."

Mark Carwardine says in The Guiness Book of Animal Records 1995. "Spider silk is the strongest of all natural and man-made fibres.... It is even stronger than steel: the dragline of a European garden spider (Araneus diadematus), for example, can support a weight of 0.5 g (0.002 oz) without snapping, whereas a steel strand of similar thickness will snap under the strain of just 0.25 g (0.01 oz)."

Rainer Foelix says in Biology of Spiders 2nd Ed 1996. "The tenacity of spider silk is slightly less than that of Nylon (Lucas 1964), yet its elasticity is twice as high (31% vs 16%). .... In terms of tensile strength it is clearly superior to bone, tendon or cellulose, and it is half as strong as the best steel. .....a dragline would have to be 80km long before it would break under its own weight."

At How Stuff Works we are told. "Spider silk is extremely strong -- it is about five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as Kevlar of the same weight. Spider silk also has the ability to stretch about 30-percent longer than its original length without breaking, which makes it very resilient."



It has been estimated by scientists to be at least five times as strong as steel, twice as elastic as nylon, waterproof and stretchable."

"Dragline spider silk is actually stronger than Kevlar synthetic fibre and Kevlar is several times stronger than steel," says polymer scientist David Tirrell who wrote a review for the journal Science."

If all that is a little confusing, is it as strong as steel, stronger than steel or less strong, is it stronger than Kevlar or not, perhaps we can find some facts somewhere. The truth is it depends on how you measure it and what condition the silk is in. Silk absorbs moisture (a property given it by the large amount of the amino acid Alanine it contains). The more water silk contains the less brittle and the more elastic it is. The range is from about 30% to 300% elasticity depending on the amount of water it contains. Thus we can see that changing the humidity of the environment the silk is spun in, and the length of time it exists in that environment before it is tested will effect the results of the tests.

With all these things considered we learn that the tensile strength of spider silk under normal laboratory conditions is slightly less than steel if you compare it in terms of the threads diametre, but it is far greater than that of steel if you compare it in terms of the weight of the thread. Obviously spider silk is lighter per unit area than steel. When we make the comparison with Kevlar we find that it is three times harder to break than spider silk, however spider silk is five times as elastic.

www.earthlife.net...

[edit on 11-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

Dont count out Nanotube fibers just yet, although they are a long way off from practicle application, they are 100x stronger than steel, 1/6th the weight and fairly flexible too if its woven as a textile. You can make armour plating out of the stuff too, it's all in how you 'grow' the nanotubes and what they are made of(ie they can add certain elements to carbon nanotubes to make they conduct/block heat,electricity,repel/attract water etc.) We havn't even begun to scratch the surface of nanotubes.

Now I'm not putting down Spider Silk at all, in fact I am a firm believer in Spider Silk for things like micro-sutures, fishing line, maybe high end clothing, etc. Nexia the company that developes it has been focusing it's efforts on Nanoscale Spidersilk because thats where they know where tech is going. Unfortunately they have suspended development in their Industrial strength SpiderSilk because of the superior promise of Nanotech.

www.nexiabiotech.com...

EDIT: BTW I got that info from thier 2003 Yearly Financial Report Print Verson

[edit on 11-8-2004 by sardion2000]

I have found so much contradictory information looking into spider silk I dont know whats correct about it and whats wrong.

Carbon nano tubes seem pretty impressive though. Do people have any clue how long before we see some pratical applications for this stuff?



[edit on 11-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

Well I've heard some reports that the Japenese have come up with a method that can make 3m long threads out of single walled NTs. I'd say that we will start seeing some applications in around 10 or so years but that is definetly a pessimistic view, and seeing how fast technology is progressing(and its speeding up too) there could be some applications just around the corner(2007-2012). I don't really expect the groundbreaking, earthshattering stuff to come out till the 2020s, so we still gotta bit of time before we can get some Master Chief Armor

With how strong that stuff can be I could be the return of full body armour like knights of old.

Master chiefs armour did look bad A$$ that would be a cool design for future nano tube armour.




looks like a couple guys couldnt wait they made their own Master Chief armour. Pretty cool looking IMO even if its not bullet proof

nightmarearmour


[edit on 11-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

I fired a 22-250.I do not think any body armour will stop it.Even with hunting ammo,it gouged the armour plate back stop. I do not care to describe what it would do to flesh.

I think our soldiers uniform should improve in armor and it will probably get better in terms of ventilation and heat. However I don't want our future soldiers to be walking in the desert looking like Power Ranger I certainly would not like to wear a suit that makes me look like a damn power ranger.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
I think our soldiers uniform should improve in armor and it will probably get better in terms of ventilation and heat. However I don't want our future soldiers to be walking in the desert looking like Power Ranger

I certainly would not like to wear a suit that makes me look like a damn power ranger.

The Future combat suits will have climate control in them. I understand about the Powe Ranger look though Blue Yellow and Red dont have anyplace on the battle field. But if that armour was black it would look alot better or if it had optical stealth even better

If nano tubes work out to really be 100 times stronger than steel they could make some great armour. I would like to see our soldiers get some full body protection.

I was think of perhaps a better application for full budy armour in the near future. SWAT teams there raids are over quite fast they wouldnt have to be wearing full armour all day. If there is a high risk raid or something they have to do they can just put the armour on. Also they could have it be blue red what ever color they want as they want to be indentified as police.

[edit on 12-8-2004 by ShadowXIX]

The US military is trying to developed an uniform/armor that has climate control it is bio/chem proof and it will be able to warn the solider on possible wounds and how to treat it. This uniform would also have some type of visual stealth and nano fibers to act like muscles that can give a human 3x more strength in their legs or arms fro running faster and other things. The uniform would also have communication links with the other soldiers and the command, embedded in the uniform a GPS chip fro location.
Now combine this with light nanotube armor.

Originally posted by Relentless
Anyway, from what I'm hearing back we ARE going all out for these guys, what do you know anyway?

Some US Soldiers Forced to Buy Own Gear

Despite efforts to produce more vests with the armored plates, the Pentagon says there still aren't enough, especially among guardsmen and reservists. All troops rotating out of Iraq are now being required to leave their vests behind so incoming troops can use them.

Yeah vests were a problem in the begging of the war. But leaving your vest behind for the other members is not a bad idea it saves money and is a good think until we can get more vests in there.

Originally posted by cargo

Despite efforts to produce more vests with the armored plates, the Pentagon says there still aren't enough, especially among guardsmen and reservists. All troops rotating out of Iraq are now being required to leave their vests behind so incoming troops can use them.

K - I don't know what the deal is with the article, but the kid who I am writing to is a Gaurdsman and a Gunner just like in the picture of who the vests are made for. HE is in the direct line of fire daily, and he has it, and he is saying he is being taken care of.

So I don't know what the deal is with the article but it strikes me that the people whose families are buying equipment for may not have kids in the same position and are not as likely to need them. (I hope they are not being taken advantage of quite frankly.)

I don't mean to sound harsh here, but so far what I read in the propaganda is not anything like what's being reported to me directly from the front line, and I'll take his info before I'm gonna buy into anything in the news.

That's just one article. Do a google search and you will find a lot of news agencies carrying this. And this isn't at the start of the war, check the article dates.

Googled

I've seen photos of prison guards and interrogators with armoured vests on. Quite frankly, if I was being sent to Iraq whatever my role may be, I would want the pentagon to provide everything necessary to ensure my safety. With a military/defence budget the size of yours, that is the least you should expect.

It's hardly propaganda when you have a mother quoted as saying:

"[By] purchasing something for my son, then that means hopefully somewhere down the line somebody else that's overseas will have adequate equipment," Pene Palifka said.

Having to buy it for her son to ensure that someone else can get equipment, simply not her responsibility. But I salute her for being so considerate.

[edit on 18-8-2004 by cargo]

www.sciforums.com...

Here is some stuff i read about think you will find it usefull
humm... carbon ring armor.... .01 mm of this is equel to 2 inches of steel armor bogles the mind combine that with state changing gels and you got some very nice armor. That is the future of armor my friend makes so many things posible not even funny.... Then we got stuff called starlight that has next to no heat transfer I wached a test of it they took a egg and covered one side with starlight and took a plasma cutter to it on the starlight side for 45 min. All it did was darken the starlight then they broke the egg and showed it was not cooked. Then thay took a egg and put a under the torch and it exploded instanly, cool stuff put starlight over the carbon ring armor and you got HE round resistance you cant shake a stick at... Then there is aro gels that are light as air and can wistand 3000 degrees C you combine all these parts together in one suite of armor and you got a unstopable killing force...

part of the artical follows

Beyond even these is a theoretical material, ring carbon. This would be at least an order of magnitude stronger than perfect diamond whiskers and both more chemically stable and harder. Suit armor made from interlocking, benzene-like rings of carbon atoms would protect the wearer from anything short of a heavy anti-tank weapon, with very little weight. Even then, more danger would come from the transmitted shock of impact than from penetration. A centimeter of this would be equal to roughly 100 thousand centimeters of RHA. Assuming such an armor could be made, it would survive without a scratch impacts which would not only pulp the wearer but powder the equipment inside. It would be best used as a reinforcement for a more conventional composite armor. A few grams spread through the outer layer of the composite would greatly increase the protection of the armor (meaning the armor could be made thinner and lighter and still stronger).

www.dcr.net...

[edit on 1-9-2004 by shadarlocoth]

[edit on 1-9-2004 by shadarlocoth]