The latest innovation in 3D printing, an area where new developments are going really fast and well, is the ability to create cubes capable of stopping bullets.
The feat was performed by researchers at Rice University's Brown School of Engineering, who printed cubes of "tubular-type ultra-hard polymers" that were lightweight and perforated but hard as diamonds.
At the point where these blocks can stop a proverbial speed ball, and much more effectively than a solid block of the same material. In other words, the network of holes has a reinforcing effect; in fact, the best samples were shown to be 10 times more effective at stopping a ball than a solid block.
The bullet fired at 5800 m / s (a very fast projectile) stopped at the second layer of tubular cubes, no "significant structural damage" was observed beyond this layer. However, in a solid reference cube made from the same material, the cracks ran all the way through the block (the cube in the lower right of the image above).
Tubulans are cross-linked carbon nanotube structures, but they remain to be discovered and are purely theoretical. But in this work, the theoretical idea was developed to produce these polymer cubes, with these seemingly impressive results.
Crushing force
Seyed Mohammad Sajadi, a Rice graduate student and lead author of the project, also noted that under compressive forces in a laboratory press, the tubular blocks collapsed without breaking.
He added that such tubulan-like polymer structures, or even metal or ceramic, would be limited only by the size of the printer that manufactured them.
Additionally, optimizing network design could mean better materials for all kinds of industries, from automotive to aerospace, civil engineering, sports, or even applications. biomedical.
Oil and gas companies are likely to want to adopt this type of technology to create strong, durable materials that can be used in deep well construction. And given the ball arresting experiments taking place here, it's not hard to imagine that maybe we could make some kind of lightweight bulletproof vest or protect military vehicles like tanks.
Meanwhile, on the front of buildings in general, 3D printing is already in use, as we have seen recently with the largest (two-story) 3D printed building ever built in the UAE. And there is also the possibility of autonomous eco-cities, including 3D-printed houses mostly of mud (yes, nothing but the soil on site).
via Gizmodo