
Proteus becomes the world's first manufactured non-cuttable material - chippy
https://newatlas.com/materials/proteus-non-cuttable-bike-lock-armor/
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p1esk
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23901635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23901635)

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phendrenad2
There's a great YouTube video, probably from defcon, where someone talks all
about safes and the many decades of materials science that have gone into
them. When hard-to-cut materials were tried, thieves ended up crushing safes
or trying to shear them in half.

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m0nty
See also Tim Hunkin:
[https://www.timhunkin.com/94_illegal_engineering.htm](https://www.timhunkin.com/94_illegal_engineering.htm)

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opwieurposiu
Seems similar in concept to composite tank armor

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour)

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choeger
Could we finally get closer to safety gloves that work for table saws? As much
as I would love to use own, that thing just scares the shit out of me. And
yes, I know about the saw stop.

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thecureforzits
Go look up "degloving" to see why gloves are bad idea around spinning tools.

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runlevel1
Might want to mention that's NSFL.

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karlshea
What did they use to cut it for the cross-section picture?

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advisedwang
It's a CT scan, they did not cut it for that.

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karlshea
Ahhh and of course it says exactly that in the caption I did not read!

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Geezus_42
"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."

So what happens if you cut or drill at low speed?

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cududa
Same damage done on the upper layer to the cutting device. Just takes much
longer to wear down - the only way you make any slight cut into it is with
high speeds

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nerfhammer
pour some liquid nitrogen on it and hit it with a sledgehammer?

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mrob
No mention of plasma cutters. I think a big enough plasma cutter will make the
plasma go around the ceramic to reach the conductive metal and the ceramic
will fall out.

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Finnucane
If bike thieves have plasma cutters, we’re definitely in trouble.

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Skunkleton
Based on my read of the article seems like this would fall apart under evenly
applied force. Like a bolt cutter. Odd that the article doesn't mention bolt
cutters.

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genocidicbunny
And in the first paragraph they even mention that this might have applications
for bike locks. If that was an intended application, surely testing against
bolt cutters which are so frequently used would be something they'd have done.

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Skunkleton
Maybe they are using the technical definitions of sheering and cutting?

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snypher
>cellular aluminum structure

Seems like this could be easily degraded through chemical means. The analogy
of Jello filled with chicken nuggets made me think of just eating the Jello
part.

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mberning
Gallium comes to mind

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hexane360
Of course gallium is very expensive (a few thousand $ per kilogram).

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thetinguy
Let’s see it resist oxy acetylene torches and plasma cutters.

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binarymax
And liquid nitrogen. Extreme heat and cold are usually the easy ways around
these materials. I wonder how the ceramic would hold up.

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SketchySeaBeast
But isn't the video of them cutting it? Or is the uncuttable material
underneath the bit that got cut by the angle grinder? I can't know if that's
the material stopping at an arbitrary point, or something heavy underneath.

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jhorman
It says it right in the text of the article

"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."

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SketchySeaBeast
Ah, ok. Looking at the composition on the side seems to indicate that it's two
separate metals entirely. Which I guess is the case?

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stagger87
If you don't want to wait for someone to answer, the short article has answers
for all the questions you put forth so far.

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SketchySeaBeast
I did read the article, but I don't see anywhere it states that there will
clearly be one material on the outside and then a block of proteus underneath.
What they are grinding is clearly two different materials, and it stops when
it gets to the second one. The x-rays and the example don't seem to have a
metal outside welded on, which is my confusion - it looks like someone welded
a plate onto the miracle material, when in that little image in the corner of
the x-ray it looks entirely homogeneous.

Because we can't directly see the miracle material, the video feels
disingenuous.

