I've welded bullet proof cars. Most of the time aluminum sheet, mild steel, then stainless backing. Aluminum slows down, mild steel catches, stainless reinforces. So the idea is you'll probably want multiple layers of increasing or decreasing in strength. Excellent video! Flight on batman!
Layers is always the best approach, for rifles, I do composite (for spall) then carbides / ceramics for shattering and balling the round, then wovens to catch and dead stop what's left
This is very wrong. Aluminum alone is terrible for armor and only reason it would ever be used in armor can be summed up to: 1. Corrosion/weather resistance. 2. Cheap cost & Ease of shaping & Low weight. 3. Triggering warheads further away from the actual armor (like RPG's). It's possible you've been handling aluminum alloys which is a whole different story. The mild steel > stainless is valid as it acts like a bendy energy & slowdown sponge before striking harder material which you need speed to defeat.
@@CoecooFor light armor alu is not that bad for protection vs weight: "The ballistic limit of Armox 500T steel target has been found to be 55% higher than the equivalent 7075-T651 aluminum target. Therefore, it may be concluded that the weight of Armox 500T steel target is 280% higher than the equivalent aluminium target while the increment in the ballistic limit is merely 55%."
@@Coecoohe never said aluminium was good as armor just that its a material that quickly vibrates meaning all the aluminium is effected by the bullet not just a small area
He's showing us the whole process, how about taking inspiration from him and also becoming a hero? Then he can't forget because you're at the same round table for heros 😂
The information on the kinetic energy dispersion and penetration in the first 3 minutes was wonderfully explained without deep diving nor adding distracting material.
As a combat Marine that served during the start of both of the last wars, I always wondered if there was a way to inject an oobleck type substance into some kind of honeycomb structure to replace our heavy body armor. Outstanding work young man! USMC 1999-2007
I can see that. Make a mesh, have it in a close fitting bag and use a vacuum system to pull the oobleck in a seal it. I'm thinking a bag made from fiberglass like the bullet catchers for homemade ceramic plates amor.
Thank you for your service! Non-Netwonian Fluids can have some promise, and as Stephen mentioned, a vacuum is about what you'd need to force it onto the voids. You'd also want that to give it time since fast pressure to push it in would actually just make it resist conforming throughout.
@@CrashMakerspace Yeah you'd need to first let the fluid settle in and then do it in steps, it'll still firm up but after a period of time it should relax again Would be interesting how it would affect the whole structure (Perhaps in the sense of concrete and rebar?) Tho making a structure specifically for that purpose might be worth it Perhaps a combination of non newt and soft rubber has a chance (as in a rubber backplate to absorb leftover kinetic energy since non newt gets brittle when at its hardest)
PhD organic chemist here. Look up the diamond crystal lattice. The structure is the reason diamond is much harder than graphite, and I believe it would be a better candidate for energy dissipation than what you currently have. The compound adamantane is basically a single unit of the lattice and could help you design your primitive. Good luck and take care!
Thanks dude! I know much of the strength of diamond comes from the strong covalent bonds I wonder if that is what comes before structure in their strength. The diamond cubic is pretty similar to the 3D hex structure that I have, but that technically has 1 extra node per repeated struct
@CrashMakerspace So what's crazy is that Graphene's bonds are actually much stronger than diamond's bonds! The reason diamond is more wear resistant is because it's crystal lattice extends in three dimensions, whereas graphene's only extends in two. This is actually crazy because your results support this exactly! Your cubes that had the more honeycomb like structure (like graphene) severely underperformed because it could only disperse energy in two dimensions, while your alternated tubulane (more diamond like as you said) dispersed energy in all three directions. I didn't realize just how diamond like the structure was until I took a closer look at what you showed in the video. Very cool! You can check out another allotrope of carbon, Lonsdaleite, to get an idea of how you could even further increase energy dissipation. That compound is apparently 58% harder than diamond!!!!! Side note, check out Bravis lattices for more ideas on different ways to arrange your nodes: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravais_lattice It will save you a lot of time trying to math out the repeating unit structure, it has already been done for pretty any orientation could imagine! This is actually how we classify crystal lattices of compounds. Sorry for being so long winded, but this just so happens to hit literally my three passions in life: chemistry, firearms and 3D printing.
@@CrashMakerspaceyou may also want to look up “the octet truss” aka A type of space frame or 3d truss, as these shapes like Octet trusses have shown to be more effective for the purpose of providing structural integrity. Might not be able to made dense enough though with the tools you have though, hnmmm
Reminded me of that one Mythbusters episode where they found out that those pre assembled mini ceramic tiles for bathrooms (which are mounted on a plastic support structure to lay them down like bigger tiles) were able to stop a 9mm bullet.
yeah they are quite crazy add in a layer of fiberglass and a second layer of tile and youve got a very durable armor thats strangely similar to tank armor
I have two requests: 1) test to see how well they react to being shot at an angle instead of straight on. 2) embed the lattice in rubber of some sort, not necessarily to stop the bullet itself, but to try and control the shattering and shrapnel.
can someone please provide this awesome nerd a proper test range. a good amount of information provided, great methodology, concise and well edited. goofy camera work but that's fine lol. just a little more for equipment and safety precautions, and eventually a better (more controlled/safe) test environment and dude is set!
Color of resin changes the depth of cure drastically. You may find the brittleness of the final samples change a lot. You should print test coupons and check the curing curves of each and ideally you need to measure the mechanical properties to determine if the colors are indeed equal.
there are so many different resins to try did you try them all? Then there is fiber reinforced resins? stick with resins for a bit longer! Tell Elegoo you want to test their resin and get it free! I would actually want to see a resin strength test as an ad vs a stupid curing station ad, do you know a black light is $3?
@@remotepinecone I only did ABS-Like resin, that was the same resin (just different colors) for all tests to stay consistent. There are totally stronger resins, I just didn't have them on hand. The ceramic ones seem ideal but are super super costly.
@@rondobrondo yes, clear resin cures REALLY fast, while opaque/darker resins take longer to cure. so, the dark green one would need a bit more curing time than the clear would, and if he were using the opaque grey ABS-like, it would take longer to cure than the see-through resins since the light has a tougher time penetrating the surfaces. one thing i've heard for a good uniform cure on print parts is to submerge them in a pyrex type (see through) dish with water in the curing station/UV light area. the water acts to get the light into spaces normally the light wouldn't hit due to how light interacts through water. that said, be careful to not keep the prints in the curing water too long as it can eventually mess them up. also not advisable for all resin types, like the plant based ones. ABS-like is generally ok with water for a bit.
Basically, the 3D Print Steel is expensive so I'm taking it right to the extreme haha. My existing carbide plates stop multiple 308 / 556 green tip so if it can't beat those, then I throw it out for use in the combat suit. I'll probably do, for each plate, one 556, then one 300WM and see if either penetrated; repeat until the regular plate or the tubulane embedded plate fails first.
@@CrashMakerspace at present I still think casting/molding is the way to go, but I'm researching my ideal materials to death before I try shrinking the budget for analogues to something reasonable
@@CrashMakerspace now I know it is not a ceramic, but. Demolition ranch, and stay with me now, don't stop reading because I'm talking about one of the crazy gun men posting videos to the internet. The owner of that TH-cam channel actually acquired a prototype bulletproof vest, they drove over it and there was a mild warping in the plate after that. I believe it might the potentially worth looking into non ceramics, and finding a possible Superior material. Also why not make the exagonal structure out of ceramic, which has a higher Breaking Point than steel, and is used in body armor? Is it because much like the resin it will be fine until it breaks, instead of fine until it warps, and then warp Until It Breaks like Steel ? If if you want the thing to be able to survive an impact, by warping before it breaks. Now I'm no expert on steel. I'm really not a authority figure on this. But spring steel seems like it wouldn't be a bad choice, because after it warps it will go back into its previous State. Also historically it was used for swords, swords are mostly metal, and they are typically made rather thin, and they would be impacting things with quite a lot of leverage, because of households are held and used. So its seemingly in my mind not a bad choice for you to single out spring steel, although in terms of raw durability I'm pretty sure 1095 excels. And if you want to read the third paragraph, just know that these ideas are Beyond normal, and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if they either don't work or don't get seriously considered by you. If you want the metal to return to its original state geometrically, because the ceramic while more protective, will shatter. There is an alloy called nitinol, and in my actual running of the math it seems pretty good. And I don't remember the exact numbers I used, the ones I found after finishing the math that I do, or the actual values for the material, or if there has been any improved versions of said material that have came out since then. However, it is capable of exerting quite a lot of force when returning to its original state, to the point that you can actually lift some rather Hefty stuff with like a coiled up cable that you stretched out long and bolted to the ceiling, and a blowtorch. And that is a smart alloy, I don't know if you know that they exist. But if you apply heat or electricity or magnetic force to a alloy, and that alloy reacts, and it's supposed to do that. It is considered a smart alloy. And the batsuit that you are making seems to have built-in power, which I have yet to see anyone else try that. I remember the video you made with the battery pack. And if you were to add a couple more batteries, maybe just one more battery. Maybe you put a third battery in between the two battery in each section, maybe if you add batteries that are much thinner and less around to the other sections of the nylon straps. Because the human body, and certainly a person with a emphasis on maintaining their physical fitness. They would have shapes to their body that are predictable, and you can slide stuff around the curvy bits, and the more flat sections. So if you were to hypothetically, get another battery made, so that would be thin, and you put it on the part of the strap that rubs up against your rib cage, on the side, right where it's nice and out of the way, right where it can be thin and present and not interrupt anything. It could Supply power, the wires could run under the armor, there wouldn't be any collision, and you could use this to run voltage, or perhaps an electromagnet even. So that it can activate a smart alloy, so that this hypothetical batsuit armor that would be very expensive. Would have the structure which distributes the force of the impact throughout the material very well, which is also being reinforced by a rigid, hard, hi durability ceramic or resin, you could stimulate the metal frame, causing the smart alloy to actively attempt to keep its shape - which then provides more resistance to the bullet that is impacting the armor. Instead of having just a material that resists deformation, being reinforced by another material which is just durable. You have a framework that resists deformation, and actively is undoing said deformation, which is being reinforced by really rigid ceramic. Also have you thought about putting anything inside of the hexagonal tubes of the top 3? You could try putting some kind of 3D printed rod in their, because hexagons were the base for this design. And hexagons are really strong as a shape to my understanding, because the corners work together, and the angling works out really nicely for that, and it may or may not also be capable of Distributing the force throughout the entire shape like a circle. But a hexagon has quite a bit of empty space inside, it's something that could be described as a shape with the minimum border and the maximum interior, that can interconnect with itself unlike a circle. So what if you like, put a series of coiled up Springs in there? You like getting contact with a spring making company, ask for a specific metal, possibly specific alloy, and make it small enough to fit inside the hexagonal tubing? I suggest spring, because it's coiled up, instead of a straight metal bar, which I figured wouldn't be very effective. And it's being a 3D printed, so it's not like the structure inside of the hexagon is going to provide support to the hexagon, because it would certainly be separate. Unless of course you assemble the hexagon out of triangles, which are also a strong shape- so it would be like six shapes in one. But that would leave less room for ceramic.
My Batman suit / redhood suit, shown at 1:52, it already just over 1/4" thick, super light and does great against a ton of 9mm FMJ / 357 so I've got that covered already!
In America? You can buy a 50 BMG pistol in america, rifle rounds are not too extreme. And in gotham, where the batsuit is most often used, rifle rounds are not as Extreme as a man with so much steroids that he can single-handedly defeat the crocodile man who because of a skin condition is more than multiple yards tall, and has a tail.
@@CrashMakerspaceThis is very cool! I hope you find a way to keep up this lovely explorational/educational work and at the same time take measures toward patent protection. You might want to read up a bit regarding the rules of disclosure and how to protect an invention despite having disclosed its existence and even aspects of its "secret sauce" publicly. There are ways but you have to think ahead.
@@CrashMakerspace I actually did see a simulation of armor that was segmented, versus Armor that was a solid chunk basically. It looks like they took the solid chunk of simulated material and separated it with two lines. And it performed worse than the solid chunk, because basically. When you add a gap between the armor, instead of making it a solid chunk. Yes anti-tank rounds that are designed to shatter ceramic will destroy the entire piece of ceramic for the side of the tank, instead of a single plate if your armor is single rather than segmented, and if that one plate runs the entire thickness of the armor, then you've compromised an entire side of the tank. But if there is a spaced out gap between the two pieces of material in the armor, at the front of the first segment it may seem normal. But at the back of the first segment it's not getting any support from the front of the second segment, which allows the bullet or projectile to go deeper into the same length of armor when it's spaced, compared to a solid mass of the same length. So I recommend that if you do segments, you make each segment out of each individual piece of 3D printed framework, so that when the armor is shot, instead of the segments causing gaps where there's no support, the same as allow for the ceramic being shattered in one section to not compromise the entire at least side of the armor.
Definitely, laterally they did worse as shows with the hex smaller cube. Doing 45 etc theoretically should be fine still due to angled bridges, but I didn't perform angled tests due to increased chance of richochets in the test space haha
It looks like part of the trick here is that the voids in the structure prevent cracks from propagating. Also, bullets are easier to stop when they're not bullet shaped and composites will almost always be better for this sort of thing since you can have layers that break up the bullet and layers that catch those fragments and disperse the energy. I'm excited to see how your 3D printed metal version of the best lattice will work when you combine it into a composite!
It's so beautiful to witness how so many people are taking steps towards creating real life applications of hero suits/equipment that are useful. So far we have ironman, batman and spiderman in the works from multiple people. The future is looking epic!!
There are two things that I think would be interesting to try for this sort of thing: 1. Computer generated designs, maybe something like a genetic algorithm. That would let you pump out lots more variations for testing and identify new paths. 2. I'm curious what would happen if you used something like super hard beads or maybe spikes or something in the outermost layer to encourage the bullet to fragment early and spread out it's impact. Even just a thin outer layer of steel might do something like that.
@@LanceThumping I’ve made a genetic algorithm before and have that shell, which I’d love but the physics of these complex structures based on all the marital properties would need a massive effort haha, I think CAD might have some pretty good ones but they are expensive simulators
@@CrashMakerspace I know that doing physics sim would be nasty. What I was suggesting was using it for maybe smallest crystal you could that would then be repeated, then doing prints for tests. It's a lot more manual work but it won't require a supercomputer running 24/7.
Have you considered layering multiple geometries into the same cube structure? (e.g. a single 30mm cube structure consisting of 10mm hexagonal woven bridge, 10mm woven tubulane, 10mm alternated tubulane mesh) Or do you lose strength with something like that?
This would be a fun test, likely wouldn't loose much strength. When applied to stronger materials, or ductile ones like metal this would be another factor too
Be sure to anneal and/or temper the printed steel before you embed it in resin, and remember you’ll definitely need a vacuum chamber. Godspeed! This is fascinating.
Hey crash makerspace! First of all, I wanted to say I loved the video already before even finishing it. These types of formats are educational and fun to watch. In future videos, I request bullet resistance patterns incorporate a similarity to how concrete is toughened by mixing and distributing the right blend of aggregate sizes and quantities. The right combination and distribution makes the concrete crack resistant, and more reliable. To mimic self healing concrete, if it is possible to create a pre-compressioned spring lattice "aggregates" then damaged areas may experience healing.
Thanks for the feedback! Exactly, nano particle infills are and other matrix-supporting structures (done in an even and controlled manner) can greatly increase a composite's ability for energy absorption and distribution
Some ideas: 1) Try layering material geometry. You mentioned near the start of the video about using geometry to maximise the compressive and tensile strength of the material, but have you tried alternating between different layers of maximum compressive strength geometry and maximum tensile strength? High compressive strength geometry will absorb more forward force, but is more likely to shear sideways, allowing the bullet to pierce through. Having a layer of high tensile strength geometry will spread the strain out but will absorb less forward momentum. Having multiple layers is better but of course thickness and weight need to be taken into account. Tensile layer, compressive layer, tensile layer, etc. 2) Overall material shape. I noticed that every test piece was a cube. A flat surface material shape will disperse less energy/momentum than a curved shape. Dams are curved because they need to contain the immense water pressure from the reservoir, and why bridges have arches etc. It might be better to test a wide curved band instead of a flat cube. The outside layers will be wider, tapering down as the material curves, which may need to be considered into the design. ie wider yet thinner outer layers that taper down to narrower but thicker inner layers. 3) Consider turning linear momentum/forces into angular momentum/forces. I didn't get a good close up look at the exact design of the material geometry, but it looked like the base of the design was a pattern of circular/hexangonal nodes with a bunch of support struts connecting to the neighbouring nodes. I didn't get a close enough look to see if the struts were straight lines ie perpendicular at the tangent. Consider making them offset so that they are more like spiralling spokes on a wheel rather than straight support struts. Bicycle wheels have super thin spokes which buckle easily under compression, but hold strong under tension. Try adding a slight offset, so that it looks more like a pattern of counter rotating spirals than direct linking nodes. This should help the compressive forces by relying on tension as well. 4) The strength of a triangle. Triangles are the strongest shape, which is why tetrahedrons (diamonds) are so hard. Have you tried designing layered tetrahedral geometry? ie instead of connecting to a neighbour on the same layer, a top layer node with three spokes connects down to an adjacent node on the second layer. This type of design maximises compressive strength, and can be designed to create a weave like pattern. It might be interesting to see a design combining layered tetrahedrons for compression, spiralling spokes for tension, alternating materials that specifically focus on maximum compression/tension, and all on an overall curved design band instead of a flat design plate. 5) Dilatant, non newtonian fluids. Ooblek (corn starch and water) is a type of dilatant non newtonian fluid, which means its viscosity increases as shear strain increases. Try finding a good dilatant fluid that you could pour into the block to see if it does anything. Or just ooblek. Could be fun to see the results.
When we can make these kinds of lattices on an atomic scale using meta materials, we'll see light weight bullet proof body armor like in sci-fi movies.
Firstly i want to thank you for doing these diy research videos. Second I did some material science at college, a hardened structure such as the one you made will always break dissipating the kinetic energy of the bullet, in that regard you might want to combine the hard resin with a softer material that might catch the bullet, also check the design pattern for the dragon skin armor. Third you might want to check how wood is composed and how cellulose, hemi-celluose and lignin are combined to create a stronge structure, if your plan is not to stop a war munition you could look Into it.
Very well done video. I do have a couple concerns though, if you're firing indoors the lead styphnate from the primers is a problem. It's a molten aerosol when firing and is easily inhaled which can lead to lead poisoning. I've known range safety officers who solely work in indoor ranges to wear respirators due to the lead contamination they experience. The body naturally excretes some lead, but the more you're exposed to the more your body has to eliminate. The other is gunpowder residue being flammable. It doesn't happen often but there have been range fires due to powder going up. Just wanted to makes sure you were familiar with these risks.
I don't have the links at hand, but there are a number of super interesting papers on the stiffness and energy absorption characteristics of cuttlebone inspired structures. One paper found cuttlebone is equally stiff as a theoretical isotropic composite of the same material and full density, with the cuttlebone being only 7% solid. Paired with a nacre inspired face structure, this should provide a route to some seriously lightweight but capable armor. Granted, it does require the ability to print more than one material at a time, which could pose problems.
I printed a 6-12 hexa tubulane out of PLA PRO, dimensions were 20mmx20mm, and then proceeded to run it over with an M1A2 SEP. (Armor Crewmen) I was surprised to see that it squished to approx 12mm but survived, even when pivoting on it. The amount of strength both on tension and compression is amazing. Especially considering that the M1A2 is 68 tons and the total cost of production was approximately 20 cents.
OK, I love the video but I’d love it if you showed the 3D model of each of the various named structures, like some good shorts might be showing the 3D structure, showing that 3D print being made, show it being shot with the 22, then show the aftermath. It’s educational for the audience because it helps folks gain intuition about each of the shapes efficacy… plus with shorts you get some algorithmic boosting
Just wanted to say i absolutely love that you working on ballistic gear again and can't wait to see where you go with it. Hope to buy it from you one day when you in full production mode 😉
Huh, this is your first video I've seen but you look pretty good so far. Looks like I'm subscribing. I love the investigation into different structures! I think this is a good demonstration of why nanotechnology is has so much potential. You managed to both decrease the density, and volume, for a significant reduction in how much material is stopping the bullet, and yet still blocked it better than the solid material!
I think you should start with something less powerful than 300 win mag FMJ to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of steel mesh compared to homogenous steel
Artichoke had a similar thought! Here's my response to him since it's applicable here -- "Basically, the 3D Print Steel is expensive so I'm taking it right to the extreme haha. My existing carbide plates stop multiple 308 / 556 green tip so if it can't beat those, then I throw it out for use in the combat suit. I'll probably do, for each plate, one 556, then one 300WM and see if either penetrated; repeat until the regular plate or the tubulane embedded plate fails first."
it would be neat to see these structures tested after being dunked in glue, so it holds it together better after it gets hit, very cool to stop a bullet with 3d printed parts.
Similar concept of NN fluids, the ability to flex is necessary to allow the primary medium to still guide the force, but it would add another interesting variable to test!
you should consider using CSG for making your latices ! space repetition is literally free, along with edge smoothing. it is a designing process you should keep an eye on in the future i think
I think the best solution is to have the nodes change layer by layer, as the projectile slows down. The first one would consist of slightly different nodes, after which each layer would gradually change towards the top.
The idea of distributing the impact as widely as possible is a very good insight. I wonder whether you could combine your lattice with a weave of very thin, strong fibers like zylon that are essentially sewn into the structure. Then you can imagine that the fibers will transfer force to other cellular units while also better maintaining the integrity of the structure.
This kid has the right idea. Iteration in a lesser medium to get a baseline with additive manufacturing to reduce costs. The big boys are going to be left in the dust if they don't set up and take notice.
Nice work! Excited to see the metallic version. I'm not sure yet how you'd implement it, but it would be interesting to see if small channels to allow gas to escape like a silencer could help too. Just thinking about ways to add damping, which could increase total energy absorbed. Perhaps just having the fine lattice already gets some benefit that way. It would be interesting to see the output from a load cell if that were viable.
I was testing something very similar about 5 years ago. Difference being the material was polycarbonate and the printer was FDM. Funnily enough same naming convention. Anyhow the reason different tubalane configs can have such varied results is because the energy of the bullet is getitng absorbed/released by the snap points. Easy way to see how well it gets dispersed before shooting it is putting it under a stress test in Fusion360/solidworks/etc. I did move onto developing a Schute design packed with Magnesium Hydroxide, but sadly I never got around to testing if a pocket of powder schute was better than a tubalane schute packed with powder. Well best of luck in your future tests.
@@CrashMakerspace Short answer very accurate and you can/could entirely model such things digitally. Now for personal anecdote I had a legacy license/contract for fusion360 and static simulations were the only ones you could run on your personal machine. They're leading CAD software so it was very accurate, can't say if they're the best option nowadays though. They did have event modeling but I don't believe I ran many if any simulations, since that required modeling a ballistic and then paying to run it on their cloud. That or it was an extra addon package. At the time it was less hassle to just test a higher static force deformation/displacement/stress and then confirm via practical tests.
About a year ago I came to the idea of a “trampoline” kind of armour, which by my calculations should be 4-5 lighter than an ARMOX 600T armour plate. The first variant should be based on UHMPE or kevlar sheets strung across rubber harness on some metal frame. The other variant should be “elastic metallic”: you take 200-300 m of spring, stack it together (randomly directed) by layers and interconnect individual springs in many joints by welding or other method, so that a plate 5-10 cm thick is formed, and finally you just harden and quench the plate.
04:10 you should apply the Subdivision Surface onto a single lattice primitive and then use the arrays to duplicate it. Saves A LOT of compute power because it can do the smoothing once and then just duplicate as opposed to duplicating something simple and then smoothing every bit individually. Yes, there are slightly more considerations when doing this since your mesh must "meet" with it's neighbors at a point of continous tangency after the array has been applied (a.k.a the seam edges should make sharp corners between the joining surfaces) but that isn't really a big limitation since for lattice design that is a desired property anyway
Bro good point haha -- I'll have to see if the bridges get wonky at all though since smooths without connections can round off connecting faces before the array applies
the red v green having the same properties is one possible variability still. in my experience the suppliers often just copy paste the datasheets changing only the dye named in the sheet, and assuming no one will check. and ive def foudn that clear/natural un dyed material is the most strength compared to the opaque colored materials but with some brands they are supposed to be the same in the datasheet.
This is a good point haha, I could totally see manufacturing saying "eh good enough" knowing folks probably aren't going to actually test those strength numbers precisely.
@@CrashMakerspaceyeh I hate to say it but I’ve had similar issues with suppliers in this vein. I think things are gonna be the same somehow because they say it is, but then it’s not, and then I remember that chemistry and physics is a wonderful and frighteningly complex thing. You may need to buy a batch of the same stuff to be consistent across tests. I’m sure if you ask People to donate a lil bit for consistent printing material of a certain type, then a lotta people would be willing to give you at least $5-$10
@@rondobrondo no worries dude, I appreciate the offer! I have Patreon & KoFi which can act as donation-like offering. I just don’t push donations since I’m trying to keep the channel pure to the science and sharing my experiements
Very impressive. I'm looking forward for more Videos about this. I see a lot of Potential for some Composite with that. To get the best of both Mediums.
And you'll be getting more on this! Once the 3D Print of Steel arrived (Still being manufactured) I'll make the regular and then the lattice based plates and see which does better.
Thanks for making such interesting content! Just putting this out there - any videos where you do a deep dive into the science behind this I will gladly watch. Im super interested in how all this works at a deeper level! :)
My first immediate reaction is it might be beneficial to create "breaks" in the tubules. Typically in brittle/hard armor you want to allow the material to take as much energy as possible into other places to slow that projectile more. It would technically be more difficult/tedious but it would reduce the material needed and slow the projectile more than solid rods. There's some interesting things going on with an italian armor company using SiC pellets that are formed into a solid plate that does something similar to that. Not sure if they either hot die them in place like traditional ceramic armor to hold them in place or it's a composite structure.
Hello, random suggestion, but i think filling the pores with a flexible resin(solution that will cool down and have a soft and flexible structure) could indeed help. The air gaps may dissipate some of the shock wave, but I'm fairly certain that with the flexible resin in place, it would dissipate the force and likely contain most, if not all, of the fragmented parts.
This is super interesting!!! I would like to see these structures 3d printed in metal and tested also with different materials used as fillings. Glass, ceramic, maybe non newtonian fluid like someone else suggested, and maybe layers of them. Great video!
Ideally, I would 1000% do a bunch of tests like this again with NN Fluid + Steel 3D Print. Unfortunately I don't have the funds for that so I'm just starting with a single 6"x6" panel to see if that's any good and that's still like $350 bucks 😅
Reminds me of the study of the material made of intersecting planes 45 degrees from each other which deflects a projectile after every collision with a plane.
I invented an armor that will stop a 50cal round with 1 layer of kevlar thread. I'll give you the basic concept , with kevlar thread set up on a fine weaving loom add an additional loom at a 45 degree angle then another loom at an opposite 45 degree angle, and then another loom at an 180 degree opposite to the first loom , this set up is necessary to weave the appropriate pattern of the weave this should be possible to do on a 3d printer when weaving make sure to loop each thread in a knot around the previous string of kevlar the idea is that each piece of thread is pulled tighter by the thread next to iit wich means that with the pattern described each piece of thread when pushed with the bullet at impact tightens the five threads next to it and as the pressure increases the threads tighten next the previous to it is an exponential numerical equation . Which I'm incapable of realizing on paper. In I hope this explanation gives you some ideas as to the concept .
a true engineer ! which not only improves but is designing new stuff mhhhh peak stuff right here, hopefully one of your inventions are gonna be successful and make some big money so I can see you doing more interesting cool shit greetings from germany
Really cool project. Just a thought, I wonder if the results would be different if you braced your sides. It looked like most of your samples were being broken apart and spreading out laterally versus failing in compression, or whatever. The real world part printed with metal would probably have enough to keep structure in the sides, so seems like a more realistic test, maybe? A thick steel ring around the test sample printed to fill the diameter sounds like a good method of testing, but I feel like heavy tape wrapped around the sides would even do a whole lot. It'd be a fun test and might end up with a different perspective
Very cool! 3d printed metal armor as the potential to be thinner and lighter than ceramic while not having the splitter and spalling problems regular steel plates have. Though a metallic ceramic composite would probably be best. Perhaps using the metal lattice like rebar in concrete
There was a ballistic armor that was rejected by the US Army, although it was very effective. They were produced in rows of round plates placed on top of each other. And the plate at the top that took the first hit was distributing the energy to those underneath and on the sides. You might want to take a look. Named “Dragon Skin” Instead of fragile bridges, plates that directly support each other with much larger surface area contact maybe much more effective.
Might also want to look into meta materials. Basically what you did here, only the dimensions of the lattice are tuned to the frequency of the energy (I'm assuming the impact velocity?). Meta materials can do some crazy things. They use them to build earthquake and tsunami latices to deflect them around buildings, and also what they use to make those 'cloaking' shells that makes an object vanish to radio waves and the like. It treats the impact shock wave like you would light or sound waves, bending them away and around, or reflecting them entirely. Usually have a gradient to the density/feature size to bend the energy. Of course, the trick is having it match the proper frequency.. but I'm betting the reason these lattices you made work so well is because of something along these lines.
You have no idea awesome it is to see this sort of stuff. Some of us watching would love to be able to get out hands on lightweight armor like some of the stuff you’ve produced already. As someone in the military, I’m seeing a constantly evolving set of dangers. I mean nowadays I have to worry about drones dropping grenades right next to me. So having ability to up armor certain parts, like my limbs, might actually save my life in the coming years
@@kahuna_6424 I appreciate your service dude! Yes drones are just scummy now as new threat, my next plate I’m working on has a 3D steel lattice which I’ll be hitting with higher caliber rounds next month to see how it fares!
@@CrashMakerspace I have been trying to find manufacturer who design rifle plates for areas other than the chest because of drones and the increased casualties being caused by artillery If you manage to design lightweight equipment that can take a rifle round. I will be seriously impressed, hell I may start 3D printing if your steel lattice increases performance A word of warning. With whatever plate you design using that steel. Make sure you have a decent spawl liner over it as steel plates are notorious for sending bullet fragments up into un armored areas
@@CrashMakerspace Ah, I should have guessed you would already have that figured out lol. Well let me know when you start taking orders for custom fitting plates. You’d make a killing
Have you heard of/thought of implementing the concept of 'radial keying'? It seems like the logical direction this concept of finding the basic primitive is going, and, infact, what your current hexagonal design seems very reminiscent of.
they could be sort of weirdly parametric like the metal may stretch more than the resin, and that might completely change the way that works. Im very excited to find out
Iv spent a lot of time wearing armor. Have you considered curving it instead of leaving it in a cube shape? I know body plates are shaped to make them more comfortable however I imagine the curved shape helps at least a little bit with impact dissipation. From what I understand tank armor isn’t flat for that exact reason. Also I don’t know if your using it but some sort of led sled or way to arrest the weapon so your replicating the shots as perfict as possible will help. Just something to think about. I loved the video and look forward to seeing more.
would be quite interesting to make a few of these and send them to someone like high speed ballistics or even demolition ranch to see if it'll hold up against an array of calibers and how the steel actually interacts with the bullet
These structures are epic man, Im sure you already moved on, but have you considered other factors that aren't just impactet resistance? What happens when you curve the structures? Or fill them with something like a non Newtonian fluid instead of air? Which ones take the most time to print? What happens when they change temperature? Are the structures able to be further condensed? What happens if you go truly nano scale with these epic structures?
Incredible video! Just randomly stumbled upon your channel and I'm instantly hooked. I'm a mechanical engineering student; is there a reason why you use blender over solidworks or fusion and should I learn it?
I've welded bullet proof cars. Most of the time aluminum sheet, mild steel, then stainless backing. Aluminum slows down, mild steel catches, stainless reinforces. So the idea is you'll probably want multiple layers of increasing or decreasing in strength. Excellent video! Flight on batman!
Layers is always the best approach, for rifles, I do composite (for spall) then carbides / ceramics for shattering and balling the round, then wovens to catch and dead stop what's left
What about layers in the print
This is very wrong. Aluminum alone is terrible for armor and only reason it would ever be used in armor can be summed up to:
1. Corrosion/weather resistance.
2. Cheap cost & Ease of shaping & Low weight.
3. Triggering warheads further away from the actual armor (like RPG's).
It's possible you've been handling aluminum alloys which is a whole different story. The mild steel > stainless is valid as it acts like a bendy energy & slowdown sponge before striking harder material which you need speed to defeat.
@@CoecooFor light armor alu is not that bad for protection vs weight: "The ballistic limit of Armox 500T steel target has been found to be 55% higher than the equivalent 7075-T651 aluminum target. Therefore, it may be concluded that the weight of Armox 500T steel target is 280% higher than the equivalent aluminium target while the increment in the ballistic limit is merely 55%."
@@Coecoohe never said aluminium was good as armor just that its a material that quickly vibrates meaning all the aluminium is effected by the bullet not just a small area
when you become batman don't forget about us
He's showing us the whole process, how about taking inspiration from him and also becoming a hero? Then he can't forget because you're at the same round table for heros 😂
@@vongalaxygg4216 that's some villain thinking right there
look at his logo.. this is clearly Robin
@@vongalaxygg4216I cringed when you imply this disgusting monopoly is a round table for hero’s and not just Zionist weirdo creeps.
Batman never built his own shit, he had lucious for that.
The information on the kinetic energy dispersion and penetration in the first 3 minutes was wonderfully explained without deep diving nor adding distracting material.
Awesome feedback! Good to know that I kept it concise enough
@@CrashMakerspaceI am African American
As a combat Marine that served during the start of both of the last wars, I always wondered if there was a way to inject an oobleck type substance into some kind of honeycomb structure to replace our heavy body armor.
Outstanding work young man!
USMC 1999-2007
I can see that. Make a mesh, have it in a close fitting bag and use a vacuum system to pull the oobleck in a seal it. I'm thinking a bag made from fiberglass like the bullet catchers for homemade ceramic plates amor.
Thank you for your service! Non-Netwonian Fluids can have some promise, and as Stephen mentioned, a vacuum is about what you'd need to force it onto the voids. You'd also want that to give it time since fast pressure to push it in would actually just make it resist conforming throughout.
@@CrashMakerspace Yeah you'd need to first let the fluid settle in and then do it in steps, it'll still firm up but after a period of time it should relax again
Would be interesting how it would affect the whole structure (Perhaps in the sense of concrete and rebar?)
Tho making a structure specifically for that purpose might be worth it
Perhaps a combination of non newt and soft rubber has a chance (as in a rubber backplate to absorb leftover kinetic energy since non newt gets brittle when at its hardest)
Magic sand? Or make a magic sand with aluminum oxide or tungsten carbide ,would really break up the bullet.
@@JarheadCrayonEater some older composite tank armour effectively works like this.
PhD organic chemist here. Look up the diamond crystal lattice. The structure is the reason diamond is much harder than graphite, and I believe it would be a better candidate for energy dissipation than what you currently have. The compound adamantane is basically a single unit of the lattice and could help you design your primitive. Good luck and take care!
Thanks dude! I know much of the strength of diamond comes from the strong covalent bonds I wonder if that is what comes before structure in their strength. The diamond cubic is pretty similar to the 3D hex structure that I have, but that technically has 1 extra node per repeated struct
@CrashMakerspace So what's crazy is that Graphene's bonds are actually much stronger than diamond's bonds! The reason diamond is more wear resistant is because it's crystal lattice extends in three dimensions, whereas graphene's only extends in two. This is actually crazy because your results support this exactly! Your cubes that had the more honeycomb like structure (like graphene) severely underperformed because it could only disperse energy in two dimensions, while your alternated tubulane (more diamond like as you said) dispersed energy in all three directions. I didn't realize just how diamond like the structure was until I took a closer look at what you showed in the video. Very cool! You can check out another allotrope of carbon, Lonsdaleite, to get an idea of how you could even further increase energy dissipation. That compound is apparently 58% harder than diamond!!!!!
Side note, check out Bravis lattices for more ideas on different ways to arrange your nodes: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravais_lattice
It will save you a lot of time trying to math out the repeating unit structure, it has already been done for pretty any orientation could imagine! This is actually how we classify crystal lattices of compounds. Sorry for being so long winded, but this just so happens to hit literally my three passions in life: chemistry, firearms and 3D printing.
@@erokfussellCan graphene be printed? If so, would using a lattice like this with a graphene print be very strong?
@@erokfussell Triangles always win the toughness competitions.
@@CrashMakerspaceyou may also want to look up “the octet truss” aka A type of space frame or 3d truss, as these shapes like Octet trusses have shown to be more effective for the purpose of providing structural integrity. Might not be able to made dense enough though with the tools you have though, hnmmm
This is very similar to my early concepts for Project MJOLNIR Underarmor. Exceptional work indeed fella! Glad I found this!
Reminded me of that one Mythbusters episode where they found out that those pre assembled mini ceramic tiles for bathrooms (which are mounted on a plastic support structure to lay them down like bigger tiles) were able to stop a 9mm bullet.
yeah they are quite crazy add in a layer of fiberglass and a second layer of tile and youve got a very durable armor thats strangely similar to tank armor
I have two requests:
1) test to see how well they react to being shot at an angle instead of straight on.
2) embed the lattice in rubber of some sort, not necessarily to stop the bullet itself, but to try and control the shattering and shrapnel.
The fact that RESIN could do this means a stronger material is gonna eat those shots like nothing... this is insanely impressive
can someone please provide this awesome nerd a proper test range. a good amount of information provided, great methodology, concise and well edited. goofy camera work but that's fine lol. just a little more for equipment and safety precautions, and eventually a better (more controlled/safe) test environment and dude is set!
@@xiles100 I’ll get there eventually 😅 glad you liked this first update of this project!
You gotta start somewhere
Safety precautions okay Boomer
What state are you from?@@CrashMakerspace
Color of resin changes the depth of cure drastically. You may find the brittleness of the final samples change a lot.
You should print test coupons and check the curing curves of each and ideally you need to measure the mechanical properties to determine if the colors are indeed equal.
Probably right on the Copy-Paste for properties haha, good tip on testing via the coupon samples
there are so many different resins to try did you try them all? Then there is fiber reinforced resins? stick with resins for a bit longer!
Tell Elegoo you want to test their resin and get it free!
I would actually want to see a resin strength test as an ad vs a stupid curing station ad, do you know a black light is $3?
@@remotepinecone I only did ABS-Like resin, that was the same resin (just different colors) for all tests to stay consistent. There are totally stronger resins, I just didn't have them on hand. The ceramic ones seem ideal but are super super costly.
@@CrashMakerspace yeh so is it true that the different colors of that same resin cure differently?
@@rondobrondo yes, clear resin cures REALLY fast, while opaque/darker resins take longer to cure. so, the dark green one would need a bit more curing time than the clear would, and if he were using the opaque grey ABS-like, it would take longer to cure than the see-through resins since the light has a tougher time penetrating the surfaces.
one thing i've heard for a good uniform cure on print parts is to submerge them in a pyrex type (see through) dish with water in the curing station/UV light area. the water acts to get the light into spaces normally the light wouldn't hit due to how light interacts through water.
that said, be careful to not keep the prints in the curing water too long as it can eventually mess them up. also not advisable for all resin types, like the plant based ones. ABS-like is generally ok with water for a bit.
That's an ambitious next step, I was planning to test in a cheap analogue with handgun rounds before escalating to tougher materials & rifle rounds
Basically, the 3D Print Steel is expensive so I'm taking it right to the extreme haha. My existing carbide plates stop multiple 308 / 556 green tip so if it can't beat those, then I throw it out for use in the combat suit. I'll probably do, for each plate, one 556, then one 300WM and see if either penetrated; repeat until the regular plate or the tubulane embedded plate fails first.
@@CrashMakerspace at present I still think casting/molding is the way to go, but I'm researching my ideal materials to death before I try shrinking the budget for analogues to something reasonable
@@ArtichokeMosshopefully the ideal structure is one that can be somewhat easily (I.e. inexpensively lol) cast/molded in a high quality fashion
@@CrashMakerspace now I know it is not a ceramic, but. Demolition ranch, and stay with me now, don't stop reading because I'm talking about one of the crazy gun men posting videos to the internet. The owner of that TH-cam channel actually acquired a prototype bulletproof vest, they drove over it and there was a mild warping in the plate after that. I believe it might the potentially worth looking into non ceramics, and finding a possible Superior material.
Also why not make the exagonal structure out of ceramic, which has a higher Breaking Point than steel, and is used in body armor? Is it because much like the resin it will be fine until it breaks, instead of fine until it warps, and then warp Until It Breaks like Steel ? If if you want the thing to be able to survive an impact, by warping before it breaks. Now I'm no expert on steel. I'm really not a authority figure on this. But spring steel seems like it wouldn't be a bad choice, because after it warps it will go back into its previous State. Also historically it was used for swords, swords are mostly metal, and they are typically made rather thin, and they would be impacting things with quite a lot of leverage, because of households are held and used. So its seemingly in my mind not a bad choice for you to single out spring steel, although in terms of raw durability I'm pretty sure 1095 excels.
And if you want to read the third paragraph, just know that these ideas are Beyond normal, and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if they either don't work or don't get seriously considered by you. If you want the metal to return to its original state geometrically, because the ceramic while more protective, will shatter. There is an alloy called nitinol, and in my actual running of the math it seems pretty good. And I don't remember the exact numbers I used, the ones I found after finishing the math that I do, or the actual values for the material, or if there has been any improved versions of said material that have came out since then. However, it is capable of exerting quite a lot of force when returning to its original state, to the point that you can actually lift some rather Hefty stuff with like a coiled up cable that you stretched out long and bolted to the ceiling, and a blowtorch. And that is a smart alloy, I don't know if you know that they exist. But if you apply heat or electricity or magnetic force to a alloy, and that alloy reacts, and it's supposed to do that. It is considered a smart alloy. And the batsuit that you are making seems to have built-in power, which I have yet to see anyone else try that. I remember the video you made with the battery pack. And if you were to add a couple more batteries, maybe just one more battery. Maybe you put a third battery in between the two battery in each section, maybe if you add batteries that are much thinner and less around to the other sections of the nylon straps. Because the human body, and certainly a person with a emphasis on maintaining their physical fitness. They would have shapes to their body that are predictable, and you can slide stuff around the curvy bits, and the more flat sections. So if you were to hypothetically, get another battery made, so that would be thin, and you put it on the part of the strap that rubs up against your rib cage, on the side, right where it's nice and out of the way, right where it can be thin and present and not interrupt anything. It could Supply power, the wires could run under the armor, there wouldn't be any collision, and you could use this to run voltage, or perhaps an electromagnet even. So that it can activate a smart alloy, so that this hypothetical batsuit armor that would be very expensive. Would have the structure which distributes the force of the impact throughout the material very well, which is also being reinforced by a rigid, hard, hi durability ceramic or resin, you could stimulate the metal frame, causing the smart alloy to actively attempt to keep its shape - which then provides more resistance to the bullet that is impacting the armor. Instead of having just a material that resists deformation, being reinforced by another material which is just durable. You have a framework that resists deformation, and actively is undoing said deformation, which is being reinforced by really rigid ceramic. Also have you thought about putting anything inside of the hexagonal tubes of the top 3? You could try putting some kind of 3D printed rod in their, because hexagons were the base for this design. And hexagons are really strong as a shape to my understanding, because the corners work together, and the angling works out really nicely for that, and it may or may not also be capable of Distributing the force throughout the entire shape like a circle. But a hexagon has quite a bit of empty space inside, it's something that could be described as a shape with the minimum border and the maximum interior, that can interconnect with itself unlike a circle. So what if you like, put a series of coiled up Springs in there? You like getting contact with a spring making company, ask for a specific metal, possibly specific alloy, and make it small enough to fit inside the hexagonal tubing? I suggest spring, because it's coiled up, instead of a straight metal bar, which I figured wouldn't be very effective. And it's being a 3D printed, so it's not like the structure inside of the hexagon is going to provide support to the hexagon, because it would certainly be separate. Unless of course you assemble the hexagon out of triangles, which are also a strong shape- so it would be like six shapes in one. But that would leave less room for ceramic.
I would vote on making the thinnest / lightest possible armor that stops pistol rounds. A rifle just seem too powerful. Soo exited for more videos!
My Batman suit / redhood suit, shown at 1:52, it already just over 1/4" thick, super light and does great against a ton of 9mm FMJ / 357 so I've got that covered already!
In America? You can buy a 50 BMG pistol in america, rifle rounds are not too extreme. And in gotham, where the batsuit is most often used, rifle rounds are not as Extreme as a man with so much steroids that he can single-handedly defeat the crocodile man who because of a skin condition is more than multiple yards tall, and has a tail.
@@CrashMakerspaceThis is very cool! I hope you find a way to keep up this lovely explorational/educational work and at the same time take measures toward patent protection. You might want to read up a bit regarding the rules of disclosure and how to protect an invention despite having disclosed its existence and even aspects of its "secret sauce" publicly. There are ways but you have to think ahead.
Suggestion, use the one that stopped the bullet, bring it down to 20 mm but after 10 mm leave a 2-5 mm gap.
Adding relief pockets could be a curious next step
@@CrashMakerspace I actually did see a simulation of armor that was segmented, versus Armor that was a solid chunk basically. It looks like they took the solid chunk of simulated material and separated it with two lines. And it performed worse than the solid chunk, because basically. When you add a gap between the armor, instead of making it a solid chunk. Yes anti-tank rounds that are designed to shatter ceramic will destroy the entire piece of ceramic for the side of the tank, instead of a single plate if your armor is single rather than segmented, and if that one plate runs the entire thickness of the armor, then you've compromised an entire side of the tank. But if there is a spaced out gap between the two pieces of material in the armor, at the front of the first segment it may seem normal. But at the back of the first segment it's not getting any support from the front of the second segment, which allows the bullet or projectile to go deeper into the same length of armor when it's spaced, compared to a solid mass of the same length. So I recommend that if you do segments, you make each segment out of each individual piece of 3D printed framework, so that when the armor is shot, instead of the segments causing gaps where there's no support, the same as allow for the ceramic being shattered in one section to not compromise the entire at least side of the armor.
Just found you scrolling through shorts and now love everything you do.
Young men like this are the reason America leads the world in material science.
Those lattices look very ansioteopic. I'm curious how they perform with a shot at an angle.
Definitely, laterally they did worse as shows with the hex smaller cube. Doing 45 etc theoretically should be fine still due to angled bridges, but I didn't perform angled tests due to increased chance of richochets in the test space haha
It looks like part of the trick here is that the voids in the structure prevent cracks from propagating.
Also, bullets are easier to stop when they're not bullet shaped and composites will almost always be better for this sort of thing since you can have layers that break up the bullet and layers that catch those fragments and disperse the energy.
I'm excited to see how your 3D printed metal version of the best lattice will work when you combine it into a composite!
Yea I'm excited to share with you how those do! The metal is still in manufacturing
Legendary science mate.
What you have done is in some scientific communities called metamaterial synthesis. Cool!
it's impressive how well spoken and intelligently this was done, was refreshing and a joy to ingest this information, super informative, thanks
This guy is like real life BatMan/IronMan it's crazy dude
It's so beautiful to witness how so many people are taking steps towards creating real life applications of hero suits/equipment that are useful. So far we have ironman, batman and spiderman in the works from multiple people. The future is looking epic!!
His workshop looks just like Iron Man’s basement lab
Design is half the solution, don't forget that... you are a genius and serious
There are two things that I think would be interesting to try for this sort of thing:
1. Computer generated designs, maybe something like a genetic algorithm. That would let you pump out lots more variations for testing and identify new paths.
2. I'm curious what would happen if you used something like super hard beads or maybe spikes or something in the outermost layer to encourage the bullet to fragment early and spread out it's impact. Even just a thin outer layer of steel might do something like that.
@@LanceThumping I’ve made a genetic algorithm before and have that shell, which I’d love but the physics of these complex structures based on all the marital properties would need a massive effort haha, I think CAD might have some pretty good ones but they are expensive simulators
@@CrashMakerspace I know that doing physics sim would be nasty. What I was suggesting was using it for maybe smallest crystal you could that would then be repeated, then doing prints for tests.
It's a lot more manual work but it won't require a supercomputer running 24/7.
this is what I was waiting for. Now we just have to see it as some armor, and I'm looking forward to that very much. Great job.
Wow, what a real life batman gear research effort - the music is awesone!
My friend Lucas is a professional musician and created these custom tracks for my channel!
Have you considered layering multiple geometries into the same cube structure? (e.g. a single 30mm cube structure consisting of 10mm hexagonal woven bridge, 10mm woven tubulane, 10mm alternated tubulane mesh) Or do you lose strength with something like that?
This would be a fun test, likely wouldn't loose much strength. When applied to stronger materials, or ductile ones like metal this would be another factor too
Excellent work. America needs more people like you.
I think I just found my new favorite youtuber. What a fantastic video.
Funny because I was just thinking not too long ago if someone were to make a cool new molecular based armor like this. Keep it up, could go places!
I love engineers that are gun owners, keep up the great work!
Thats like 90% of us lol
This is so interesting, and I’m absolutely captivated by this project. Keep up the great work Caleb.
Be sure to anneal and/or temper the printed steel before you embed it in resin, and remember you’ll definitely need a vacuum chamber. Godspeed! This is fascinating.
Hey crash makerspace!
First of all, I wanted to say I loved the video already before even finishing it. These types of formats are educational and fun to watch.
In future videos, I request bullet resistance patterns incorporate a similarity to how concrete is toughened by mixing and distributing the right blend of aggregate sizes and quantities.
The right combination and distribution makes the concrete crack resistant, and more reliable.
To mimic self healing concrete, if it is possible to create a pre-compressioned spring lattice "aggregates" then damaged areas may experience healing.
Thanks for the feedback! Exactly, nano particle infills are and other matrix-supporting structures (done in an even and controlled manner) can greatly increase a composite's ability for energy absorption and distribution
Absolutely love this man, body armor has so far to go to compensate for the increase of ballistic performance from modern bullets.
Some ideas:
1) Try layering material geometry.
You mentioned near the start of the video about using geometry to maximise the compressive and tensile strength of the material, but have you tried alternating between different layers of maximum compressive strength geometry and maximum tensile strength?
High compressive strength geometry will absorb more forward force, but is more likely to shear sideways, allowing the bullet to pierce through. Having a layer of high tensile strength geometry will spread the strain out but will absorb less forward momentum. Having multiple layers is better but of course thickness and weight need to be taken into account. Tensile layer, compressive layer, tensile layer, etc.
2) Overall material shape.
I noticed that every test piece was a cube. A flat surface material shape will disperse less energy/momentum than a curved shape. Dams are curved because they need to contain the immense water pressure from the reservoir, and why bridges have arches etc. It might be better to test a wide curved band instead of a flat cube. The outside layers will be wider, tapering down as the material curves, which may need to be considered into the design. ie wider yet thinner outer layers that taper down to narrower but thicker inner layers.
3) Consider turning linear momentum/forces into angular momentum/forces.
I didn't get a good close up look at the exact design of the material geometry, but it looked like the base of the design was a pattern of circular/hexangonal nodes with a bunch of support struts connecting to the neighbouring nodes. I didn't get a close enough look to see if the struts were straight lines ie perpendicular at the tangent. Consider making them offset so that they are more like spiralling spokes on a wheel rather than straight support struts. Bicycle wheels have super thin spokes which buckle easily under compression, but hold strong under tension. Try adding a slight offset, so that it looks more like a pattern of counter rotating spirals than direct linking nodes. This should help the compressive forces by relying on tension as well.
4) The strength of a triangle. Triangles are the strongest shape, which is why tetrahedrons (diamonds) are so hard. Have you tried designing layered tetrahedral geometry? ie instead of connecting to a neighbour on the same layer, a top layer node with three spokes connects down to an adjacent node on the second layer. This type of design maximises compressive strength, and can be designed to create a weave like pattern. It might be interesting to see a design combining layered tetrahedrons for compression, spiralling spokes for tension, alternating materials that specifically focus on maximum compression/tension, and all on an overall curved design band instead of a flat design plate.
5) Dilatant, non newtonian fluids.
Ooblek (corn starch and water) is a type of dilatant non newtonian fluid, which means its viscosity increases as shear strain increases. Try finding a good dilatant fluid that you could pour into the block to see if it does anything. Or just ooblek. Could be fun to see the results.
When we can make these kinds of lattices on an atomic scale using meta materials, we'll see light weight bullet proof body armor like in sci-fi movies.
Firstly i want to thank you for doing these diy research videos.
Second I did some material science at college, a hardened structure such as the one you made will always break dissipating the kinetic energy of the bullet, in that regard you might want to combine the hard resin with a softer material that might catch the bullet, also check the design pattern for the dragon skin armor.
Third you might want to check how wood is composed and how cellulose, hemi-celluose and lignin are combined to create a stronge structure, if your plan is not to stop a war munition you could look Into it.
Very well done video. I do have a couple concerns though, if you're firing indoors the lead styphnate from the primers is a problem. It's a molten aerosol when firing and is easily inhaled which can lead to lead poisoning. I've known range safety officers who solely work in indoor ranges to wear respirators due to the lead contamination they experience. The body naturally excretes some lead, but the more you're exposed to the more your body has to eliminate. The other is gunpowder residue being flammable. It doesn't happen often but there have been range fires due to powder going up. Just wanted to makes sure you were familiar with these risks.
This level of interest and intelligence I’m happy was introduced to me algorithm
Ok wtf... u had like 34k subs this morning and got 60k+ in less than a day... u will have 100k within 24 hours congrats
I don't have the links at hand, but there are a number of super interesting papers on the stiffness and energy absorption characteristics of cuttlebone inspired structures. One paper found cuttlebone is equally stiff as a theoretical isotropic composite of the same material and full density, with the cuttlebone being only 7% solid.
Paired with a nacre inspired face structure, this should provide a route to some seriously lightweight but capable armor. Granted, it does require the ability to print more than one material at a time, which could pose problems.
This is an amazing idea if it can be pulled off
I printed a 6-12 hexa tubulane out of PLA PRO, dimensions were 20mmx20mm, and then proceeded to run it over with an M1A2 SEP. (Armor Crewmen) I was surprised to see that it squished to approx 12mm but survived, even when pivoting on it. The amount of strength both on tension and compression is amazing. Especially considering that the M1A2 is 68 tons and the total cost of production was approximately 20 cents.
OK, I love the video but I’d love it if you showed the 3D model of each of the various named structures, like some good shorts might be showing the 3D structure, showing that 3D print being made, show it being shot with the 22, then show the aftermath. It’s educational for the audience because it helps folks gain intuition about each of the shapes efficacy… plus with shorts you get some algorithmic boosting
Just wanted to say i absolutely love that you working on ballistic gear again and can't wait to see where you go with it. Hope to buy it from you one day when you in full production mode 😉
This is very cool. Super interested in getting involved in something like this
Huh, this is your first video I've seen but you look pretty good so far. Looks like I'm subscribing.
I love the investigation into different structures! I think this is a good demonstration of why nanotechnology is has so much potential. You managed to both decrease the density, and volume, for a significant reduction in how much material is stopping the bullet, and yet still blocked it better than the solid material!
@@MatthewWilson-qe4lg great that you found me! Happy to have you here, nothing quite like some practical trial & error after the theories 😅
@@CrashMakerspace Hey, its loads of fun! How are you supposed to get anything done without breaking something (just make sure it's not yourself)
I think you should start with something less powerful than 300 win mag FMJ to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of steel mesh compared to homogenous steel
Artichoke had a similar thought! Here's my response to him since it's applicable here -- "Basically, the 3D Print Steel is expensive so I'm taking it right to the extreme haha. My existing carbide plates stop multiple 308 / 556 green tip so if it can't beat those, then I throw it out for use in the combat suit. I'll probably do, for each plate, one 556, then one 300WM and see if either penetrated; repeat until the regular plate or the tubulane embedded plate fails first."
honestly, if someone is shooting 300 win mag at you ,your plates are the least of your problems
it would be neat to see these structures tested after being dunked in glue, so it holds it together better after it gets hit, very cool to stop a bullet with 3d printed parts.
Similar concept of NN fluids, the ability to flex is necessary to allow the primary medium to still guide the force, but it would add another interesting variable to test!
Oh gods yes. Hearing 'stress/strain' in this kind of video is awesome. Thank you, subscribing.
you should consider using CSG for making your latices ! space repetition is literally free, along with edge smoothing. it is a designing process you should keep an eye on in the future i think
Can't wait to see the metal versions. and how this will all connect with the spinal batteries and other components.
I think the best solution is to have the nodes change layer by layer, as the projectile slows down. The first one would consist of slightly different nodes, after which each layer would gradually change towards the top.
The idea of distributing the impact as widely as possible is a very good insight. I wonder whether you could combine your lattice with a weave of very thin, strong fibers like zylon that are essentially sewn into the structure. Then you can imagine that the fibers will transfer force to other cellular units while also better maintaining the integrity of the structure.
This kid has the right idea. Iteration in a lesser medium to get a baseline with additive manufacturing to reduce costs. The big boys are going to be left in the dust if they don't set up and take notice.
Nice work! Excited to see the metallic version. I'm not sure yet how you'd implement it, but it would be interesting to see if small channels to allow gas to escape like a silencer could help too. Just thinking about ways to add damping, which could increase total energy absorbed. Perhaps just having the fine lattice already gets some benefit that way. It would be interesting to see the output from a load cell if that were viable.
I was testing something very similar about 5 years ago. Difference being the material was polycarbonate and the printer was FDM. Funnily enough same naming convention. Anyhow the reason different tubalane configs can have such varied results is because the energy of the bullet is getitng absorbed/released by the snap points. Easy way to see how well it gets dispersed before shooting it is putting it under a stress test in Fusion360/solidworks/etc. I did move onto developing a Schute design packed with Magnesium Hydroxide, but sadly I never got around to testing if a pocket of powder schute was better than a tubalane schute packed with powder. Well best of luck in your future tests.
Sounds awesome! How accurate have you find those stress tests for impulse hits via Fusion / solid works?
@@CrashMakerspace Short answer very accurate and you can/could entirely model such things digitally.
Now for personal anecdote I had a legacy license/contract for fusion360 and static simulations were the only ones you could run on your personal machine. They're leading CAD software so it was very accurate, can't say if they're the best option nowadays though. They did have event modeling but I don't believe I ran many if any simulations, since that required modeling a ballistic and then paying to run it on their cloud. That or it was an extra addon package. At the time it was less hassle to just test a higher static force deformation/displacement/stress and then confirm via practical tests.
About a year ago I came to the idea of a “trampoline” kind of armour, which by my calculations should be 4-5 lighter than an ARMOX 600T armour plate. The first variant should be based on UHMPE or kevlar sheets strung across rubber harness on some metal frame. The other variant should be “elastic metallic”: you take 200-300 m of spring, stack it together (randomly directed) by layers and interconnect individual springs in many joints by welding or other method, so that a plate 5-10 cm thick is formed, and finally you just harden and quench the plate.
04:10 you should apply the Subdivision Surface onto a single lattice primitive and then use the arrays to duplicate it. Saves A LOT of compute power because it can do the smoothing once and then just duplicate as opposed to duplicating something simple and then smoothing every bit individually.
Yes, there are slightly more considerations when doing this since your mesh must "meet" with it's neighbors at a point of continous tangency after the array has been applied (a.k.a the seam edges should make sharp corners between the joining surfaces) but that isn't really a big limitation since for lattice design that is a desired property anyway
Bro good point haha -- I'll have to see if the bridges get wonky at all though since smooths without connections can round off connecting faces before the array applies
@@CrashMakerspacei think you can set it per vertex not to smooth something.
it can be found in the editmode side panel (was it hotkey N?)
1:04 a Hertzian cone, or if you are more familiar with the channel How Ridiculous ... a coney joaney.
This might be my favorite comment on TH-cam haha😂
YES! ive been frustrated no one was doing this! look into beetle shells my guy, you won't regret it
I cant wait for these material test to be put into collaboration project with slow mo guys !!
the red v green having the same properties is one possible variability still. in my experience the suppliers often just copy paste the datasheets changing only the dye named in the sheet, and assuming no one will check. and ive def foudn that clear/natural un dyed material is the most strength compared to the opaque colored materials but with some brands they are supposed to be the same in the datasheet.
This is a good point haha, I could totally see manufacturing saying "eh good enough" knowing folks probably aren't going to actually test those strength numbers precisely.
@@CrashMakerspaceyeh I hate to say it but I’ve had similar issues with suppliers in this vein. I think things are gonna be the same somehow because they say it is, but then it’s not, and then I remember that chemistry and physics is a wonderful and frighteningly complex thing.
You may need to buy a batch of the same stuff to be consistent across tests. I’m sure if you ask People to donate a lil bit for consistent printing material of a certain type, then a lotta people would be willing to give you at least $5-$10
I would give you $10 right now if I knew how to
@@rondobrondo no worries dude, I appreciate the offer! I have Patreon & KoFi which can act as donation-like offering. I just don’t push donations since I’m trying to keep the channel pure to the science and sharing my experiements
Very impressive.
I'm looking forward for more Videos about this.
I see a lot of Potential for some Composite with that. To get the best of both Mediums.
And you'll be getting more on this! Once the 3D Print of Steel arrived (Still being manufactured) I'll make the regular and then the lattice based plates and see which does better.
This dude reminds me of Stuff Made Here…and I love it!!!
Sometimes, just sometimes YT can still recommend a cool channel from its usually awful algorithm. Cool concept keep it up 👍🏻
Fascinating.
Well done.
Thanks for making such interesting content!
Just putting this out there - any videos where you do a deep dive into the science behind this I will gladly watch. Im super interested in how all this works at a deeper level! :)
It will be really interesting, because the metal has completely different properties. I wish you luck.
Yep definitely!
My first immediate reaction is it might be beneficial to create "breaks" in the tubules. Typically in brittle/hard armor you want to allow the material to take as much energy as possible into other places to slow that projectile more. It would technically be more difficult/tedious but it would reduce the material needed and slow the projectile more than solid rods.
There's some interesting things going on with an italian armor company using SiC pellets that are formed into a solid plate that does something similar to that. Not sure if they either hot die them in place like traditional ceramic armor to hold them in place or it's a composite structure.
Can't wait to see the final product! But I'm also here for the journey!
Glad to have you here bro!
To me it seemed like the node size played a part in its ability to stop what do you think? Awesome stuff, can't wait to see more!
Facinating results! Unexpected.
Hello, random suggestion, but i think filling the pores with a flexible resin(solution that will cool down and have a soft and flexible structure) could indeed help. The air gaps may dissipate some of the shock wave, but I'm fairly certain that with the flexible resin in place, it would dissipate the force and likely contain most, if not all, of the fragmented parts.
@@redrayot I’m going to be experimenting with making your own ballistic STF which I’ll likely put into these if I derive an effective solution!
This is super interesting!!! I would like to see these structures 3d printed in metal and tested also with different materials used as fillings. Glass, ceramic, maybe non newtonian fluid like someone else suggested, and maybe layers of them. Great video!
Ideally, I would 1000% do a bunch of tests like this again with NN Fluid + Steel 3D Print. Unfortunately I don't have the funds for that so I'm just starting with a single 6"x6" panel to see if that's any good and that's still like $350 bucks 😅
Reminds me of the study of the material made of intersecting planes 45 degrees from each other which deflects a projectile after every collision with a plane.
@@jsbrads1 this what I do with all my composites when I make them too!
love that these look like kryptonite, well done sir
I just found this channel. Very cool, I'm impressed, keep up the good work.
I invented an armor that will stop a 50cal round with 1 layer of kevlar thread. I'll give you the basic concept , with kevlar thread set up on a fine weaving loom add an additional loom at a 45 degree angle then another loom at an opposite 45 degree angle, and then another loom at an 180 degree opposite to the first loom , this set up is necessary to weave the appropriate pattern of the weave this should be possible to do on a 3d printer when weaving make sure to loop each thread in a knot around the previous string of kevlar the idea is that each piece of thread is pulled tighter by the thread next to iit wich means that with the pattern described each piece of thread when pushed with the bullet at impact tightens the five threads next to it and as the pressure increases the threads tighten next the previous to it is an exponential numerical equation . Which I'm incapable of realizing on paper. In I hope this explanation gives you some ideas as to the concept .
a true engineer ! which not only improves but is designing new stuff mhhhh
peak stuff right here, hopefully one of your inventions are gonna be successful and make some big money so I can see you doing more interesting cool shit
greetings from germany
@@clausthor1070 thanks dude! Glad you found some of my projects
Really cool project. Just a thought, I wonder if the results would be different if you braced your sides. It looked like most of your samples were being broken apart and spreading out laterally versus failing in compression, or whatever. The real world part printed with metal would probably have enough to keep structure in the sides, so seems like a more realistic test, maybe? A thick steel ring around the test sample printed to fill the diameter sounds like a good method of testing, but I feel like heavy tape wrapped around the sides would even do a whole lot. It'd be a fun test and might end up with a different perspective
Very cool! 3d printed metal armor as the potential to be thinner and lighter than ceramic while not having the splitter and spalling problems regular steel plates have. Though a metallic ceramic composite would probably be best. Perhaps using the metal lattice like rebar in concrete
There was a ballistic armor that was rejected by the US Army, although it was very effective. They were produced in rows of round plates placed on top of each other. And the plate at the top that took the first hit was distributing the energy to those underneath and on the sides. You might want to take a look. Named “Dragon Skin”
Instead of fragile bridges, plates that directly support each other with much larger surface area contact maybe much more effective.
Might also want to look into meta materials. Basically what you did here, only the dimensions of the lattice are tuned to the frequency of the energy (I'm assuming the impact velocity?).
Meta materials can do some crazy things. They use them to build earthquake and tsunami latices to deflect them around buildings, and also what they use to make those 'cloaking' shells that makes an object vanish to radio waves and the like. It treats the impact shock wave like you would light or sound waves, bending them away and around, or reflecting them entirely. Usually have a gradient to the density/feature size to bend the energy. Of course, the trick is having it match the proper frequency.. but I'm betting the reason these lattices you made work so well is because of something along these lines.
Ive been waiting for a new video from you for 2 weeks now. And I can safely say that this did not disappoint.
This was a ton of time sunk these past 2 weeks haha so it's good to know you enjoyed this lol
You have no idea awesome it is to see this sort of stuff. Some of us watching would love to be able to get out hands on lightweight armor like some of the stuff you’ve produced already.
As someone in the military, I’m seeing a constantly evolving set of dangers. I mean nowadays I have to worry about drones dropping grenades right next to me. So having ability to up armor certain parts, like my limbs, might actually save my life in the coming years
@@kahuna_6424 I appreciate your service dude! Yes drones are just scummy now as new threat, my next plate I’m working on has a 3D steel lattice which I’ll be hitting with higher caliber rounds next month to see how it fares!
@@CrashMakerspace I have been trying to find manufacturer who design rifle plates for areas other than the chest because of drones and the increased casualties being caused by artillery
If you manage to design lightweight equipment that can take a rifle round. I will be seriously impressed, hell I may start 3D printing if your steel lattice increases performance
A word of warning. With whatever plate you design using that steel. Make sure you have a decent spawl liner over it as steel plates are notorious for sending bullet fragments up into un armored areas
@@kahuna_6424 yessir, spall I have been managing very well for years now with my builds. These would have steel cores not as strike faces
@@CrashMakerspace Ah, I should have guessed you would already have that figured out lol. Well let me know when you start taking orders for custom fitting plates. You’d make a killing
This is super dope! Definitely earned my sub. I am interested in seeing where this goes
@@LDSG_A_Team glad you found the channel! I’ve received my steel 3D lattice so that video will be coming out next month
Have you heard of/thought of implementing the concept of 'radial keying'? It seems like the logical direction this concept of finding the basic primitive is going, and, infact, what your current hexagonal design seems very reminiscent of.
they could be sort of weirdly parametric like the metal may stretch more than the resin, and that might completely change the way that works. Im very excited to find out
Totally! The ductility could improve or detract from the strength
You should fill the mesh with steel powder. The energy transfer should let it melt a bit absorbing even more energy.
Good work brother hopefully PCBWay doesn't take too long 🔥
bro, ma man taking the vigilanty to another level jskjsksjsl
Iv spent a lot of time wearing armor. Have you considered curving it instead of leaving it in a cube shape? I know body plates are shaped to make them more comfortable however I imagine the curved shape helps at least a little bit with impact dissipation. From what I understand tank armor isn’t flat for that exact reason. Also I don’t know if your using it but some sort of led sled or way to arrest the weapon so your replicating the shots as perfict as possible will help. Just something to think about. I loved the video and look forward to seeing more.
Incredible work my friend, you've got a new avid follower! 🦉👍🏻
Glad you found my projects!
Great concept! I think you should try Geo Nodes for this type of stuff. Probably better performance and easier to manipulate in the long run.
would be quite interesting to make a few of these and send them to someone like high speed ballistics or even demolition ranch to see if it'll hold up against an array of calibers and how the steel actually interacts with the bullet
2:43 that's a lot of pee
These structures are epic man, Im sure you already moved on, but have you considered other factors that aren't just impactet resistance? What happens when you curve the structures? Or fill them with something like a non Newtonian fluid instead of air? Which ones take the most time to print? What happens when they change temperature? Are the structures able to be further condensed? What happens if you go truly nano scale with these epic structures?
Incredible video! Just randomly stumbled upon your channel and I'm instantly hooked. I'm a mechanical engineering student; is there a reason why you use blender over solidworks or fusion and should I learn it?
Just so compelling! Love it as always