6 ms·
Proteus becomes the world's first manufactured non-cuttable material
- Geezus_42 6y ago"These cause it to become even harder the faster you grind or drill "due to interatomic forces between the ceramic grains," and "the force and energy of the disc or the drill is turned back on itself, and it is weakened and destroyed by its own attack." So what happens if you cut or drill at low speed?
- cududa 6y agoSame damage done on the upper layer to the cutting device. Just takes much longer to wear down - the only way you make any slight cut into it is with high speeds
- phendrenad2 6y agoThere's a great YouTube video, probably from defcon, where someone talks all about safes and the many decades of materials science that have gone into them. When hard-to-cut materials were tried, thieves ended up crushing safes or trying to shear them in half.
- snypher 6y ago>cellular aluminum structure Seems like this could be easily degraded through chemical means. The analogy of Jello filled with chicken nuggets made me think of just eating the Jello part.
- mberning 6y agoGallium comes to mind
- hexane360 6y agoOf course gallium is very expensive (a few thousand $ per kilogram).
- crispyambulance 6y agoI think folks are getting hung up on "non-cuttable". That just means you can't remove material in a typical way with a cutting tool that shears off chips of material (a saw, grinder, drill bit, etc). They're not claiming it's indestructible-- just useful for certain scenarios.
- hexane360 6y agoAluminum is much less susceptible to most acids than steel. Usually it calls for hydrofluoric acid, which is very nasty stuff.
- nerfhammer 6y agopour some liquid nitrogen on it and hit it with a sledgehammer?
- Skunkleton 6y agoBased on my read of the article seems like this would fall apart under evenly applied force. Like a bolt cutter. Odd that the article doesn't mention bolt cutters.
- genocidicbunny 6y agoAnd in the first paragraph they even mention that this might have applications for bike locks. If that was an intended application, surely testing against bolt cutters which are so frequently used would be something they'd have done.
- Skunkleton 6y agoMaybe they are using the technical definitions of sheering and cutting?
- xsmasher 6y agoYep, bolt cutter would go through that aluminum like butter; or use a car jack or long lever to bend it in half. A layer of this on top of steel bar would help guard against power tools. My bike lock already has a rubberized coating; embed ceramic balls in that.
- mrob 6y agoNo mention of plasma cutters. I think a big enough plasma cutter will make the plasma go around the ceramic to reach the conductive metal and the ceramic will fall out.
- nordsieck 6y ago> No mention of plasma cutters. I think a big enough plasma cutter will make the plasma go around the ceramic to reach the conductive metal and the ceramic will fall out. Any method that lets you attack the aluminum and avoid the ceramic will be extremely effective. I suspect the simplest effective attack is to just apply a shearing force - something like cable cutters although ideally with less of an edge so they're less vulnerable to deformation. As long as the tool doesn't rely on a cutting edge to work, it should be able to ignore the ceramic component of the composite material.
- Finnucane 6y agoIf bike thieves have plasma cutters, we’re definitely in trouble.
- p1esk 6y agoDuplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23901635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23901635
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoBut isn't the video of them cutting it? Or is the uncuttable material underneath the bit that got cut by the angle grinder? I can't know if that's the material stopping at an arbitrary point, or something heavy underneath.
- jhorman 6y agoIt says it right in the text of the article "An angle grinder or drill bit will cut through the outer layer of a Proteus plate, but once it reaches the embedded ceramic spheres, the fun begins with vibrations that blunt the tool's sharp edges, and then fine particles of ceramic dust begin filling up gaps in the matrix-like structure of the metal."
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoAh, ok. Looking at the composition on the side seems to indicate that it's two separate metals entirely. Which I guess is the case?
- stagger87 6y agoIf you don't want to wait for someone to answer, the short article has answers for all the questions you put forth so far.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoI did read the article, but I don't see anywhere it states that there will clearly be one material on the outside and then a block of proteus underneath. What they are grinding is clearly two different materials, and it stops when it gets to the second one. The x-rays and the example don't seem to have a metal outside welded on, which is my confusion - it looks like someone welded a plate onto the miracle material, when in that little image in the corner of the x-ray it looks entirely homogeneous. Because we can't directly see the miracle material, the video feels disingenuous.
- 6y ago
- opwieurposiu 6y agoSeems similar in concept to composite tank armor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour
- karlshea 6y agoWhat did they use to cut it for the cross-section picture?
- stronglikedan 6y agoLooks like it's non-cuttable in the same vein as unlimited data plans.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- advisedwang 6y agoIt's a CT scan, they did not cut it for that.
- karlshea 6y agoAhhh and of course it says exactly that in the caption I did not read!
- thetinguy 6y agoLet’s see it resist oxy acetylene torches and plasma cutters.
- binarymax 6y agoAnd liquid nitrogen. Extreme heat and cold are usually the easy ways around these materials. I wonder how the ceramic would hold up.
- choeger 6y agoCould we finally get closer to safety gloves that work for table saws? As much as I would love to use own, that thing just scares the shit out of me. And yes, I know about the saw stop.
- georgyo 6y agoIf you looked at any of the pictures or watch the demo video you will see that the material is very stiff and thick. I wouldn't saw it is suitable for gloves. But the general consensus is always not to wear gloves at all. The risk of it getting caught in the machine amplifies the risk much greater than just cutting yourself or losing a finger.
- thecureforzits 6y agoGo look up "degloving" to see why gloves are bad idea around spinning tools.
- runlevel1 6y agoMight want to mention that's NSFL.
- flareback 6y agoYou might be interested in this. https://www.sawstop.com/ https://www.sawstop.com/
- franze 6y agoI am in the 9 finger club and I do not believe that gloves would help. Or as the doctor said when I was 16: "You can no longer sew on mush." and dropped my "what was previous known as my finger" into the garbadge bin. I was wearing gloves. Big, hard ones.
- mankyd 6y agoYou don't use gloves around spinning motors because it will suck the glove up. Even if the gloves survive tearing, your fingers don't survive mushing.
- 6y ago