Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
191–200 of 249 posts
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've managed to keep my bike locked up outside OVERNIGHT in San Francisco (Washington & Polk St.) for a year now. How I did it? The short version: one very good lock (Viro Euromonolith + Peewag security chain, $175), a second good lock (kryptonite, $90), and an okay lock (Abus, to keep them from stealing the basket, $60). I've also had 3 bikes stolen, the rear wheel stolen, the basket stolen, the front brake stolen,…
If I may ask, what is the specification/purchase value of the bike? Is it cheap enough to not look like a juicy target?
The bike was around $700-$800 new (I bought it used for $500). It's a Public bike, and their closest current model is the PUBLIC M7i, which retails for $799.
It's a target, but it's certainly not a "juicy" target like, say, a $3k mountain bike.
The bike thieves continue to steal the small stuff, notably the rubber attachments which hold my bike lights, but haven't been able to steal the big stuff (frame, wheels, basket, seat) in a long time.
One of the strangest things that was stolen is the yellow electrician's tape I used to "dog" my seat with—they painstakingly peeled off the tape, but left the seat.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#193Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
While researching a reply, I uncovered USDA Technical Bulletin No. 1413: "Thermal Properties and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Marsh Grapefruit". Please enjoy: https://hortscans.ces.ncsu.edu/uploads/t/h/thermal__51bf44b0...
Goodness, that is interesting. It's not clear why this matters from the paper, in that it sounds like (but not spelled out) that they are perhaps trying to refrigerate fruit for transport, where the transport itself is not actively refrigerated, merely insulated, so the reduction to target temperature has to occur before shipping. However this was published in 1970, and I'd assume in that part of the world refrigerat…
(absorbed by osmosis during my time at Zest, a JIT produce handling company)
Harvest time is extremely hectic. There's a very small window to get months worth of produce picked, sorted, cooled, packed and shipped. Cooling is a major bottleneck, because capital for refrigeration is not unlimited. Likewise any delay can be a major issue- if a truck is slow to load, how do you know whether or not you need to re-cool your produce first?
It's well known what temperatures produce does well at (can't be too hot or too cold without MAJORLY affecting end margins) because it's easy to test by setting a fridge to a given temperature. It's much harder to know, for a given type of produce, how fast it will cool or heat, and how long you need to spend doing that. It's not as simple as sticking a thermometer in it, which will create paths for heat to move into and out of the produce. Even then you still don't know what the heat distribution inside the produce is so you can optimize the temperature over as much of the plant as possible.
It's really quite tricky and stuff like this helps farmers a lot. IMO farmers do more actual number math more than almost any other occupation (ex: [1]). Much of it is rules of thumb and guesstimation, but they still are constantly balancing dozens of figures to make choices every day. They're always doing mental calculations in economics, biology and physics. Even if the job wasn't so physically and technically taxing, I would respect the hell out of them just because of the mental workload.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forget locks... just make my tires out of this.
Punctured tyres are not a problem in practice anymore. Puncture resistant tyres are fairly cheap and very reliable. I cycled thousands of kilometers without getting a flat.
On cars they absolutely are still a problem in practice.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#196This non-cuttable metal material sounds extremely useful: > "Security applications such as doors or barriers (as protection from forcible entry attacks) are obvious ones. However, our material technology could also be useful for enhancing the cutting resistance of shoe soles or protective clothing. Workers could benefit from non-cuttable elbow pads or forearm guards in environments with industrial tools." As someone…
This material is completely unsuited for making shoe soles or elbow pads; it's a two-inch-thick plate of aluminum foam with half-inch ceramic spheres embedded in it. Around that they welded steel plates to give it a uniform surface. It'd make a very heavy but uncuttable door, but you can't make hinges or locks out of it. It would be a good material to make safes out of; those already have thick walls of composite mat…
If you make a secure doorway with the hinges on the threat side, well, you're already toast. No need to make hinges out of anything special.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#197One may need to use an angle grinder correctly in a video to convince me. The demo where they plunge the angle grinder straight into the material is no different than the effect on hardened steel. Typically you would start at an edge to minimize the contact area of the cut. That's why lock shackles are rounded.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't attach it to another lock?
Some bike racks are designed to maximize capacity, and you're supposed to roll your front wheel into the rack, between some very narrow vertical bars. You could probably cut the bars with any decent bolt cutter, and certainly with a hacksaw. The U shapes and up-and-down S shapes, where you can move your bike alongside a thick element and lock the frame, are fundamentally better but will still be cuttable.
I've seen thieves cut street signs and sturdy bike racks to take a bike. I don't really see this material working for relatively thin bars like a regular U-lock. The base material is aluminum which is relatively soft. Thieves would just switch to shearing action tools to cut through it and if the bar isn't very thick they'd probably only encounter 1 or 2 of the ceramic beads and push them away through the soft metal. They might even use a portable torch to soften it up before cutting.
Conceivably you could have a thick Proteus core with a thick hardened steel casing but it makes the lock either unwieldy or terribly expensive. Maybe they will be able to embed the ceramic beads directly in hardened steel, making it lighter and more resistant to cutting.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#199I feel like it says a lot about the HN audience that the biggest reply chain is about bike locks, of all things.
Why? Bike locks are surely the most common thing people have experience of being cut that they don't want to be cut.
Re: Proteus Technology: New Material Is Strong, Light and Non-Cuttable
#200I'm not sure "non-cuttable" is the best description, it is cuttable, but it messes the tools "Cutting resistant" might be a better description, and it is an interesting material regardless Sounds like it works for applications where you need something to absorb "stopping" energy but without wearing out (too much)
Agreed - that angle grinder got through it fairly quickly I would say. I mean, slower than other material, sure. But it still cut it.