Thread 16720298

Why don't they make bulletproof vests out of diamond if it is the hardest metal?

>>16720298 (OP)
Cause it's too heavy. 1 gram of diamond weights something like 15 grams

>>16720298 (OP)
diamond is brittle. the "hardness" comes from its ability to resist sustained pressure. something like a bullet with sufficient energy transfer would make it crack or outright shatter. it would also be extremely expensive to synthesize plating like that.

>>16720298 (OP)
Because diamonds are forever, not for bulletproof vests

>>16720298 (OP)
You can't shape them, we just pick them up from diamond trees as is. We grow different trees to have different sizes and shapes.

>>16720298 (OP)
1 it would shatter easily.
Which, if it's layered on a substrate that prevents it from breaking apart might be acceptable, but you would have to rebuild it every single time you use it, which is a nonstarter.
Another issue really though is weight.

>>16720298 (OP)
It would collapse the diamond industry out of their profit margin

>>16720299
Woah, that's actually impossible.

thats the thing. diamonds are too hard, causing them to transfer most of the energy to the object behind them, just like newton's cradle. metal and ceramic plates work by absorbing the bullet's energy by shattering or deforming, while diamond plate would just transfer that energy to the wearer and kill them.

>>16720298 (OP)
They would just fire diamond bullets

>>16720298 (OP)
Its too heavy. There are too many lbs per kg in diamonds. You need to lower the lbs without lowering the kg.

>>16720298 (OP)
the jews have a monopoly on diamonds, only israel is shielded by a diamond shield

You need to put lots of tiny diamonds in a gel pack and also use magnets

>>16720299
>1 gram of diamond weights something like 15 grams
how much does 15 grams of diamond weigh?

>>16721476
Like 153, you do the god damn math, I'm not holding hands here.

I thought this was the hardest metal

>>16720298 (OP)
Because ceramic is much easier to manufacture into plates.

>>16721444
Hardness is the desired property. The problem you're imagining would be cleave planes knocking out chunks of material as a less efficient energy dissipation.

I'm unsure how much drawback a properly aligned single crystal plate would have versus an amorphis or multicrystal plate. It would be a sandwich of diamond plate and backing fiber the same as ceramic plates.

Diamond actually does have some potential in body armor, as does carbon fiber and graphine.

>>16720298 (OP)
Too much demand for pickaxes.

>>16720298 (OP)
Netherite is harder than diamond

>>16720298 (OP)
>>16720299
now that the bait is out of the way:
It's a matter of fracture hardness, which is different from the scratch resistance hardness normoids talk about most of the time; ceramic has a higher fracture hardness, so it absorbs more of the bullet's impact. A diamond vest would impart too much of the bullets energy to the wearer, which wouldn't help in preventing injury.

>>16721595
Netherite makes you look like that dork Magneto

Better yet if obsidian is the sharpest rock why not just make a vest out of obsidian spikes so the bullet gets shredded on contact

>>16720298 (OP)
They did 'dragon skin' vests with sintered silicon carbide discs, which are hard as fuck too.

>>16720298 (OP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Romanov_family

The last to die were Tatiana, Anastasia, and Maria (however, according to Yurovsky's note, Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were the last to die), who were carrying over 1.3 kilograms (2.9 lb) of diamonds sewn into their clothing, which had given them a degree of protection from the firing.[98]

As >>16722131 points out, diamonds do make functional armor. As many other posters point out, they are not overly practical as large monolithic crystals for many reasons.

But there is ongoing R&D incorporating diamond powder with ceramics that has very high performance.
>Ceramics International Volume 50, Issue 3, Part A, 1 February 2024, Pages 4264-4273
>Ideal: A promising diamond-silicon carbide composite for enhanced ceramic armor
>https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272884223031735
FWIW I think fiber laminate ceramic composites are overall better unless you need the absolute thinnest high-velocity rifle/frag protection regardless of cost.

>>16721444
>ceramic plates work by absorbing the bullet's energy
nope
the ceramic plates used are meant to shatter the projectile into smaller pieces to be caught by the next layer
the shattering is to DISTRIBUTE the projectile energy

>>16722171
but they have the same flaw as diamonds in that they shatter into a bunch of pieces after enough hits, unlike the kind of composite armor discussed in >>16722157

>>16720299
>can't lift 15 gram of bulletproof vests
Do you even lift, bro?

>>16722187
this reminds me of /k/ bitching about 3kg rifle helmets while /fit/ is playing video games in 4kg boxing helmets

>>16720298 (OP)
Why not make bullets out of diamond?

1. Diamond is not a metal, it is a rock.
2. Bullets spin, and bullet-proof vests are specially designed to additionally deter the spinning motions of bullets.
3. Natural diamonds are super expensive, and don't mention the artificial diamonds because I don't know but I'm sure there's probably some reason we can't just use artificially created diamonds. Lol.

Alright yeah I just looked it up and I think lab-grown diamonds still cost a lot anyways compared to whatever shit they currently use in a bullet proof vest. So a diamond is not only not a metal but it also costs more than whatever we are currently using in our vests so I hope that answers your question. It is probably also heavier too and there's probably other complications too I'm guessing that would make it bad for this purpose. Sometimes using small diamonds is good for drill-bits though I think. Lol.

>>16720298 (OP)
>>16720299
This, it's way too heavy. Now if they froze down air til it was solid, it would be the lightest metal, and superior for aircraft as they would weigh nothing, just the weight of the passengers and jet fuel.