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Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

scitechdaily.com

71–80 of 249 posts

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#71
post #38

This could be a revolution in bike locks. Right now compact battery powered cutting tools can remove just about any bike lock quickly and can easily be concealed.

Prison cells (whose rooms are cast concrete over rebar). AT machines. Vaults, safes... Lots of things. Roll-up shutter doors... fences around construction equipment.

Not enough people are tunnelling their way out of prisons to justify the expense of building prisons out of anything like this. And it's too bulky for shutters or fences.

Safes and vaults might be a good application.

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#74
post #39

Sounds amazing, but how will we dispose of this? Looks like 760 C is required to form this. I imagine it will need to be heated above this to dispose of.

Huh? Plenty of things go in landfills that won't go away for many lifetimes

Seems legit to ask whether we can prevent adding more things to those landfills.

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in YouTube videos but I have not heard of people using Ramsets to steal bike in real life. Firing a gun is a good way to get people call the cops. Edit: I am wrong!

The new Ramset guns are surprisingly quiet. Certainly, the police won't be called, and there's not much of a risk to the thief. This is because unlike a gun, there is no need for the gases to release to the outside openly. Therefore, there is much, much less noise, and it doesn't sound like a gun at all.

I wonder if the battery-powered propellant-free Hilti fastener shooter would work, those things are extremely quiet!

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#77
post #39

Sounds amazing, but how will we dispose of this? Looks like 760 C is required to form this. I imagine it will need to be heated above this to dispose of.

That's hardly more than the melting point of aluminum (which is a large part of what this is made with.) It's much less than the melting point of copper, glass, or steel.

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absolutely amazing innovation, but bike thieves have already progressed to using powder-actuated pistons in order to break the internal mechanism of a lock. Much faster and easier than cutting anything.

Locks should have a layer of explosive material inside, so firing the powder-actuated tool (PAT) may ignite the explosives and destroy the PAT itself, and it would help too by making some very strong noise so people may hear something is going on.

I’m sure the legal department of the lock manufacturer would recommend against that..

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#79
> The cellular structure showed significant deformability, exceeding 20% of engineering strain as expected from previous studies of cellular metals

This only talks about the cellular structure, not the overall material structure, but would this mean that the material would start to deform under a heavier strain? Does that mean it would make sense to not use this material alone, but rather with other materials to make a strong product, e.g. a bike lock with this material on the outside of a thin but rigid pure metal core?

Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absolutely amazing innovation, but bike thieves have already progressed to using powder-actuated pistons in order to break the internal mechanism of a lock. Much faster and easier than cutting anything.

Not to mention pre-cutting bike racks themselves (and handrails, etc. that people lock their bikes to ), and then putting some duct tape or something over the cut. When they get ready to take your bike they don't have to cut a thing. Just lift up the cut section, slip your chain/lock through the gap, and go.

Even without a pre-cut rack, its pretty common that whatever you've locked up to (sign post, bike rack, parking meter, handrail, etc) is a lower grade of steel than the ultra-hard stuff on the shackle of a good bike lock or chain anyways. No need to pre-cut that cheap galvanized steel sign post if you don't want to, a thief would have no problem getting through it quickly if something attractive was locked up.

I'll use about $100 worth of u-locks to lock up my not-super-visually-impressive $250 spare parts city errand bike as long as overnight (and this is in NYC).

But I think the strike point where spending more on heavier/fancier locks to secure a more valuable bike just stops making sense is right about at the price point I'm already at, most nicer bikes are simply too nice to leave unattended on city streets in the US or anywhere else where bike theft is a concern. Someone with a good set of pocket tools could rip $500 worth of parts off a well-locked frameset and wheels in 20 mins without making any noise... and I don't think a non-cuttable material helps that scenario, even if it does make very secure locks attainability light.

(Could be a really big deal for bike touring folks though, who often ride out with a cheap cable lock at best because anything better is too heavy to carry for days/weeks)

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