This orange, squishy body armor material could save lives

FOXNews ^ | 6/29/18 | Allison Barrie

[Ozark Tom]

Koroyd tube materials are better than foam or other semi-solids; as, they can be tailored to act as a resilient material below a threshold, and suffer permanent deformation to absorb impact as needed in a helmet.

The material absorbs one-third more energy in a serious impact, in combination with the ability to dissipate the energy likely to result in a concussion, from simply falling over and striking the head on concrete.

One more attribute—the materials tubes being hollow allow airflow which foam does not, providing for a cooling airflow through the material.

[antidisestablishment]

That would work great if you placed it between the brain and skull; otherwise it’s going to make little difference. Traumatic Brain Injury is caused by the collision of soft brain tissue against the unyielding skull, not by point of impact.

[DannyTN]

[Manly Warrior]

Sorta, like water and corn starch- dip your finger into a thick slurry of it and nada, ram your finger in as hard as you can- solid as a rock....

Plenty of videos on the net.

[Hootowl99]

I don’t disagree at all with your accurate description of the cause and effect of the impact to the skull and the resulting injury to the brain. However, the description of this material would have the effect of greatly reducing the impact force to the skull and hence to the brain. I hope it is a material that can rapidly prove achievable for both civilian and military uses.

[Hootowl99]

I think F=ma is safe. It seems more that the F is spread out over a larger area and a significant portion of it is directed in a different direction.

[Hootowl99]

This does sound like a non-Newtonian fluid. I’ve only worked with non-Newtonian fluids a handful of times at industrial scale. One in particular drove me nuts designing the pumping and piping for a liquid-solid slurry. The others were gases at supercritical pressure and above and couldn’t directly measure anything. Pumping, piping and reactor design were by trial and error. Very expensive trial and error up through semi-commercial plant scale and heavy R&D support to commercial scale for years afterward.

[BlackbirdSST]

Yep, that’s Stretch. Sounds like the same stuff to me!

[Figment]

That won’t stop the brain from bouncing around in the cranium

[TXnMA]

"Does this material invalidate f=ma?"

No, the material goes through a temporary change of state analogous to liquid-solid fusion, which consumes the force analogue of the heat of fusion. Plus, it re-distributes localized force over a much larger area.

This new non-Newtonian material sounds like an improved version of "Sorbothane".

In my lab, I used to demonstrate "Sorbothane"'s effectiveness by putting my hand palm-down on a table, covering it with a 7/16" thick sheet of "Sorbothane" -- and then whacking on the sheet covering my hand with a big Crescent wrench until objects on the table bounced. It always horrified watchers -- yet, I hardly felt a thing...

This new "goo" should make a superb recoil pad for a shooting jacket or glove...

[al_c]

Ouch! I have yet to take such a spill. Counting my lucky stars!

[lefty-lie-spy]

Exactly what I was guessing. But maybe combined with the goo that was in my Stretch Armstrong doll I had when I was five years old.