Researchers from the UK’s Durham University and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute claim they’ve come up with the world’s first manufactured non-cuttable material, just 15 percent the density of steel, which they say could make for indestructible bike locks and lightweight armor.
The material, named Proteus, uses ceramic spheres in a cellular aluminum structure to foil angle grinders, drills and the like by creating destructive vibrations that blunt any cutting tools used against it. The researchers took inspiration from the tough, cellular skin of grapefruit and the hard, fracture-resistant aragonite shells of molluscs in their creation of the Proteus design.
An angle grinder or drill bit will cut through the outer layer of a Proteus plate, but once it reaches the embedded ceramic spheres, the fun begins with vibrations that blunt the tool’s sharp edges, and then fine particles of ceramic dust begin filling up gaps in the matrix-like structure of the metal. These cause it to become even harder the faster you grind or drill “due to interatomic forces between the ceramic grains,” and “the force and energy of the disc or the drill is turned back on itself, and it is weakened and destroyed by its own attack.”
The material is equally effective against high pressure water jet cutters – not that many bike thieves are hauling those around – since the spherical shape of the ceramic chunks tends to widen out the water jet, significantly slowing down its cutting speed.
They don’t tell us how it holds up to an acetylene cutting torch or C4.
They talk about bike locks in the article. Ignoring grinders and drills, how does it hold up to bolt cutters or hammers?
I wondered about the bolt cutters on the lock, too. I suspect the lock would lose.
Deploy it to the UK and see if it stands up to cultural enrichment.
Will Two Tier Keir try to extradite me for this.
How does it hold up to a laser….everything has to have a means of alteration. Otherwise it’s mostly useless.