Soft Parts Under Armor Gel

[Yodajammies]

As I understand it:

1. In the event of falling FROM ORBIT, it wouldn't do to have an arm or leg trapped under your body when you gave the earth a big hug at terminal velocity. I assume the suit locks up to protect Johnny boy from snapping limbs off in the event of long falls.

2. Unless I've been out of the loop for a while, I don't think we have developed a material (sans ceramic tile shuttle plating) that can withstand the heat and friction of orbital re-entry, much less a light-weight "gel layer" that can deflect high-caliber gun fire.



As for ballistics gel - that is used to visualize disentigration patterns of various types of firearms. When the bullet hits the gel, it shatters and by looking at the pattern it leaves through the gel, manufacturers can tell all sorts of fun things about the firearm, type of ammo, etc.

 

[redhead3031]

There's this new type of liquid "soft" body armor which when impacted momentarily becomes solid and incredibly rigid, hence defeating the incoming projectile, it was on discovery channel a few times, doing some googling....it's pretty similar to the D30, but intended to be worn as flexible body armor

 

[CrAzY CH13F]

you do know that Mjolnir Armor consists of Ceramic plating outside, metal platting inside and then that gel layer. if some one where to ever make this it would cost alot and i mean alot of money. eeeek when you were thinking of making this bullet proof gel were u thinking of wearing it to war?

 

[xalener]

Well, it DID cost a lot of money, that's why they only made so many sets of armor. It cost the Navy/ONI thousands of dollars per set. Maybe millions, it was something outragous.

 

[Master Chef]

It cost them the same amount as a battleship. Anyway heres the website for Do3. I've posted it before...using the search button does wonders.

http://d3olab.com The link wont work so copy and paste

Heres their sales email: sales@d3olab.com

You might want to inquire about the cost of raw d3o as in sheets or blocks. Because the products out there right now dont offer the same type of coverage armor has.

 

[xalener]

just because his armor has an electrical current as the shielding, doesn't mean it would cause the armor to lock up, the armor locking up would be do to either a built in feature to ensure that the body stays in a position where the arms and legs are spread out in case of serious injury, or it could be locked up due to too little power left, or some other reason, but honestly, how does the type of material or system you use for the defence have anything to do with movement? What I mean is that if it locks up, it's not because of the defence, it's because of an issue with the armor itself.

Or it's a fail safe presedurefor re-entry. Keeping his lims from becoming limp and breaking from such strong forces.


What I meant was a version of that gell that becomes stiff when an electrical current is run through it, isn't that farfetched in the HALO universe, HUNDREDS OF YEARS IN THE FUTURE, as it is in this one. (sounds wrong no matter how I word it, so why bother?)

 

[supertaco]

ok i've come up with a complete list of functions the gel served. i found it all in fall of reach.
now i have a list of possible substances that would perform those functions.

1.deflect bullets- obviously Kevlar and maybe that gel that you put on your bike tires that makes them virtually impenetrable
2.absorb explosions-the fact that it is a gel does that.
3.strengthen motions- acrylic, it hardens to twice the strength when under pressure, making getting kicked in the face by a spartan twice as painful.

edit:for the deflect bullets part in fall of reach it says that the armor has a shielding system reverse-engineered from the jackals shields.
also is has a temperature system that helps avoid being detected by heat sensors.

 

[CrAzY CH13F]

that sounds like some sick armour, i can guarnetee that in the future the military will use these sort of technologies if they even developed.

 

[drummguy731]

Just a note, there's a new body armor on the way for the military called "Dragon Skin". It's light and more flexible then kevlar and I think can stop a 12 gauge.

It was on Future Weapons once.

 

[Arthraxis]

Just a note, there's a new body armor on the way for the military called "Dragon Skin". It's light and more flexible then kevlar and I think can stop a 12 gauge.

It was on Future Weapons once.

That was a while ago, it failed the military's tests, not going to be used, maybe if they remake it but at it's current state, SAPI plates are more effective.

 

[The Kraken]

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,1463...ureUni,,00.html

"Liquid armor protection

The uniform might be made out of fabric treated with another technology featured in the conference's exhibit hall, shear thickening fluid. Unofficially referred to by some as liquid body armor, STF is made of equal parts polyethylene glycol – an inert, non-toxic thickening agent used in a variety of common products, like some ice creams – and miniscule glass particles, said Eric Wetzel, who heads the STF project team in the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

In a small glass vial, the light blue liquid is easily stirred with a small plastic stick – as long as the stick is moving in slow, easy motion. When sudden, rapid or forceful motion is applied, the liquid instantly hardens, preventing any movement.

"When the movement is slow, the glass particles can flow around each other," Wetzel explained. "But when the movement is fast, the particles bump into each other, preventing any flow of movement."

STF has been applied to regular Kevlar material, Wetzel said. The fabric's texture doesn't change; it looks and feels the same as if it hadn't been treated. Using a test swatch of four layers of untreated Kevlar – the normal thickness of body armor – Wetzel is able to stab an ice pick through the fabric. But when stabbing a treated section of fabric with all the force he can muster, the ice pick dents the fabric but can't penetrate through.

Research is being done into whether STF can be of use to the Army, Wetzel said. If it is, Soldiers may start getting gear treated with it in about two years, he added. "

 

[selsyn]

it seems like the layout of the Mjolnir armor would be a good set up for any kind of bullet-resistant armor set. It covers all the major areas where you are likely to be hit, and it still allows for more flexibility and movement than, say, a suit of plate armor.

As for the orbital re-entry thing, i believe that the shields could have been used to deflect that heat, but it may have sucked the power source dry in the process (hence this overpowered shield not being used more often).

From our current day perspective, it seems like the use of gel as a way to stop bullets is highly unlikely. the control of being able to harden up a specific area of the gel on command would not only be too hard to control, but would be prone to failures.

And if i remember correctly from the books, does'nt the armor also inject bio-foam, automatically change inside tempurature settings, and keep and broadcast vital statistics?

The super strength from a SPARTAN warrior came from the bio-modifications such as reinforced bones and gene therapy to change behavior and other internal characteristics.

So what i suggest is the we use a metal outside, with a ceramic layer inside, with the D3o material in between. then, the voids created by the armor pieces could be filled with an undersuit that has woven kevlar and a network of senors and small sets of gel that could be hardned by electrical impulse or by contact with a projectile on more important, but uncovered parts of the body, such as the kidneys and lower back.

thats just what ive been thinking about.

 

[Jacob]

Have you guys ever heard of aerogel? It's the stuff NASA uses to catch meteor fragments. When a piece of rock moving five miles a second attempts to penetrate it, it stops it before it moves three inches.

 

[The Kraken]

The super strength from a SPARTAN warrior came from the bio-modifications such as reinforced bones and gene therapy to change behavior and other internal characteristics.

The book DID (I just re-read Fall of Reach) say that the suit magnified their strength/speed/reaction time...so MJOLNIR does account for some of their strength....Though I still do not understand why MC can flip a tank but not kill something with one punch...haha

the control of being able to harden up a specific area of the gel on command would not only be too hard to control, but would be prone to failures...

The impression I got from that 2025 Soldier article is that the liquid would lock up wherever there was an impact...i.e. get shot on the shoulder, and that part would temporarily lock up.

 

[The Kraken]

Have you guys ever heard of aerogel? It's the stuff NASA uses to catch meteor fragments. When a piece of rock moving five miles a second attempts to penetrate it, it stops it before it moves three inches.

No but after reading about it on Wiki it sounds amazing!

 

[selsyn]

The impression I got from that 2025 Soldier article is that the liquid would lock up wherever there was an impact...i.e. get shot on the shoulder, and that part would temporarily lock up.

i was referring to the use of the hardening gel as a method to increase holding strength. i.e. running faster, or holding a door shut.

 

[dwoo]

What today's troops need is something to counteract the brain trauma that is showing up with alot of explosive related injuries. These guys have their k-pots which keep their brain housing units intacted, but they need a gel or something to dampen the forces that fling them around and literally rattle their brains inside their skulls producing damage that may not even be apparent 'til after they rotate back home.

One guy was a computer programmer before his tour and now his other wounds have healed but the docs have discovered the brain trauma that went unnoticed before has left him with inability to muster enough concentration to do his old programming job.

If you ask the military medical community they will tell you that with this war they are seeing new kinds of injuries. Partly because they can save a body from the wounds that would have been fatal a few years ago but that exposes injuries that weren't see or worried about in the past because the guy would have been dead.

-dwoo

 

[pockets]

dragon skin did not fail to meet the armys standards it failed to meet the armies budget.

dragonskin is used by several special forces units

 

[monstermike19]

i believe future weapons on the discovery channel had a thing about liquid armor, it was really interesting but i forgot how it works, but from what ive heard, its in development

 

[The Kraken]

i was referring to the use of the hardening gel as a method to increase holding strength. i.e. running faster, or holding a door shut.

Ahh gotcha. That would be an awesome use of the material, if they could figure how to make it do that kinda stuff. I don't know about running faster, but being used as a brace doesn't seem too far off the original objectives.