| From: | Adam Getchell <acgetchell@*******.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Foamed Titanium and Fullerene Bone lacing (was: Re: Nanotubes) |
| Date: | Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:29:19 -0700 |
interesting, more later) and they mentioned that using a diamondoid
substance with Young's modulus at 1 Terapascal gives diamond 69 times the
strength/weight ratio of titanium. If we look at Lar's results and use
Y=1.28 as our lower bound we still have fullerene being anywhere from 88 to
345 times stronger than titanium by weight. So, you can see where the evil
idea popped into my head ... ;-)
Manufacturing: Currently, we can get reasonable yields (~20%, perhaps Lars
has better numbers) of fibers that are 0.005 millimeters long. To make it
into a reasonable engineering substance we'll have to be able to generate
longer fibers. In practice, this probably means making batches of short
fibers and then connecting them together to form threads. This process is
akin to making a cotton shirt from lint.
Make no mistake about it, though, fullerene is THE wonder material of the
future. It is going to be the hardest substance machinable, barring
superdense or electropolymorphic materials (and certainly the highest
strength-to-weight ratio). People will want to use it in APDS, armor,
cyberware, spacecraft, cars, tennis rackets, golf clubs, and just about
anything imaginable. You can dope the stuff with various compounds to make
it electrically conductive, so it would also work in circuits: electronics,
photonics, computing, and otherwise. I'll bet that doping it with a 1-2-3
Barium-Cesium-Ytrbium compound might make it superconductive, though not at
room temperature, at least warm enough for nitrogen cooling (vice more
expensive helium).
To maintain anything like SR canon we'll have to assume the stuff is
hideously expensive to make, requiring an investment something like a chip
fabrication plant. Again, most of the difficulties are in getting long
fibers ... so you can think a fullerene fab will have rows and rows of
furnaces generating lint followed by rows and rows of micromanipulator
looms busily knitting microscopic lint fragments into threads, followed by
more looms weaving the threads into spools or fabric. Some basic nanotech
assemblers will undoubtably be in the process, but that's for another post.
So, it's expensive. "Machining" it will probably mean arranging it in nice,
neat layers molecularly engineered to be the precise shape required. How to
put a price on it in SR? Just say it's damned expensive ... trying to
figure economic yields and stuff like that will drastically alter the SR
background. Megacorps produce the stuff, and that's that. They'll have
yield problems, QC, all the hassles of a fab plant today ...
Foamed titanium is a lighter, amorphous crystalline version of titanium
metal with higher strenght to weight ratio. There's a nice web page at the
UCLA Electrophysics department, though I've misplaced the link. They also
talk about electropolymorphic materials. Dr. Edward Fok, I believe, is the
guy with the site.
Without further ado,
Foamed Titanium and Fullerene Bone Lacing:
Both types add +3 to characters' Body Attribute, and give 2 levels of
impact and ballistic armor. Fullerene bone lacing is immune to the half
armor reduction from APDS ammunition (being made of, at best, the same
stuff). Weight from foamed titanium lacing adds +10 kg, Fullerene adds
+5kg. Unarmed blows by persons with fullerene bone lacing do (Str + 2)M
damage, foamed titanium does (Str + 3)M. The Barrier Rating for foamed
titanium lacing is 16, for fullerene lacing it is 20.
Foamed Titanium
Essence: 1.15 Cost: 225,000 Avail: 18/28 days Street Index: 3 Legal: 6-R
Fullerene
Essence: 0.5 Cost: 550,000 Avail: 24/28 days Street Index: 4 Legal: 6-R
Design Notes: I modelled the invasiveness and weight of Foamed Titanium on
Aluminum bone lacing, being of similiar weight. I modelled Fullerene bone
lacing on plastic, hence the equivalent essense costs for the two types.
It would be quite expensive; I recommend having it only at Delta-grade
clinic. Foamed aluminum might be available at a Beta clinic. Likely users:
Special Forces Ops (not stupid Shadowrunner ex-SpecOps, current, long
time-in-grade types), elite Corp striketeam/bodyguards, Jaguar Guards, and
all those other high powered Shadowrun nasty bad guys. One of my players,
the sam, is on this list, so he might hear of it from here, but his
character won't catch wind of it for a long, long time.
Next topic, Active Materials ...
--Adam
acgetchell@*******.edu
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent." --Sun Tzu
