Mel Tisdale
I imagine its mechanical strength to weight ratio is also impressive.
notarichman
Neat, but please keep them away from criminals and enemies! now comes the question whether or not this type of discovery should be published?
Steve Smith
This almost seems like an April fools joke. This is remarkable if true so why isn't it getting wide coverage. It's like a miracle metal.
Colt12
This is a game changer, as was mentioned the possible resistance to space debris. This should open doors to all types of improvements.
RESISTANCE
This is not new research at all. Work was done at the Center For Composite Materials at the University of Delaware back between 1993 and 1996 using metal foams from Fraunhoffer. There was also some collaboration with ARL at Aberdeen. (Army Rearch Lab)
Mr. Hensley Garlington
Notarichman, you can't keep things out of the hands of criminals intent enough on owning such things. Prohibitions do not work and usually ensure that the law abiding public doesn't have access to such life saving products as body armor. Best thing to do is release it and let the market level it out. They will make projectiles that defeat this armor and they will make even better versions of this, but to restrict it is impossible and will not protect those you wish to protect. The same as restricting weaponry is foolish, its arguably more insane to restrict body armor.
MBadgero
Foamed metal has been around for at least several decades. Strength-to-weight has always been impressive. Not April fools, just hard to mass produce. The problem has always been to get the bubbles dispersed evenly when the foam cools and hardens. Looks like this has similar issues. The radiation protection is the same as any mass. The bullet-proof version of this uses suspended tungsten. Tungsten has also been proposed for use in copper composites for space suits to protect against micrometiorites ('The Millennial Project", Marshall Savage, 1992)
David A Galler
I wonder how it well it it will resist deterioration >
Racqia Dvorak
I'm guessing the ceramic coating has something to do with the "turned to dust" effect. The metal foam is absorbing the energy, to the tune of 70%, probably with internal deformation along all those bubbles.
" A high-performance light-weight composite armor system has been manufactured using boron carbide ceramics as the strike face, composite metal foam processed by powder metallurgy technique as a bullet kinetic energy absorber interlayer, and aluminum 7075 or Kevlar™ panels as backplates with a total armor thickness less than 25 mm"
"The results showed that composite metal foams absorbed approximately 60–70% of the total kinetic energy of the projectile effectively "
Stephen N Russell
Wonder how fast they'll get a DoD contract alone for this & add to tanks, trucks, The Beast for the White House etc alone. Huge implications for armoring vehicles, & homes