Trek ship hull strength

[Ender]

Galaxy's have nice thermal properties too:
Before
After

Notice the lack of thermal scorring, on the leading edge of the reentry no less! Just a bit of dirt.

Also note the visable blue tint on the edge of the flames, which is consistent with what we saw in Nemesis for their shields.

So that says nothing about their thermal conductivity.

EDIT: After reading Ender's posts during my writing of this, I felt this needed clarification:
1) Except the shields are not hull conforming Ender. You are proposing that the saucer section has the more advanced hull conforming shields, but the battle hull, and the combined vessel, does not?

Your exageration does nothing to show your original point was right. As it stands, as out there as that explanation is, it seems to me to be the only one that would support the evidence. Could it be the SIF? Maybe. Could it be bubble shields they set to hug the hull in an emergency? Maybe. I have no idea what it is, and thus am proposing theories. Notice that this is completely opposite of your tactic of looking at something and jumping to a conclusion that you must then scramble to support.

2) That blue tint, which is fainter than any shield glow,

It is also dealing with much less intense energy then other shuield responses.

could easily have everything to do with the temperature of the atmosphere.

Ok, I will repeat this again for the 3rd time. It cannot be the atmosphere heating because the color is off. Blue is hotter then red or orange, and if it was the friction superheating the atmosphere it should be before the red orange, not after.

I now expect this to go completely over your pointly little head as you cling to your failed conclusion that it is thermal conductivity and that is superheated atmosphere.

3) Those shields would have been extremely handy when the battle hull blew sky high. You do remember why they crashed, right? The shockwave disabled their engines, they fell into the atmosphere, and Data only achieved thruster control a few hundred meters above the surface. I highly doubt the shields were operational, to say nothing of points 1 and 2.

So the fact that the saucer only shields I am suggesting as a possible theory did not cover the main body engines is somehow a major hole to you. Pull your head out of your ass and think for once, ok?

Weaker than steel?

Search SB. Ended up being weaker then high grade steel (I think it was K-monel, a nickel iron alloy. But high grade steel was the statement)

1) The nacelle assembly is widely recognized to be the weakest area of any starship, and is not representative of the Saucer's hull integrity.

The placement of the narcell makes it a stresspoint, meaning it needs to be stronger. It is agreed to be less tough, not less strong. If you are going to talk materials science, get the terminology right.

2) Generations had a significantly larger budget than Cause and Effect, I find I trust that to be a better source of information; however, this is hard to defend, so see point three:

So you pick and choose your evidence. You just love reconfirming my opinion of you rather then changing your methods, don't you?

3) The Bozeman is ~240m long, and travelled somewhat more than its length in one second.

Screen caps and measurements please.

It also masses some 2.4 e8 kg.

Source?

Therefore it had some 5.8e10 kg*m/s to its name.

and lets just totally ignore the fact that hte Enterprise was backing up meaning the relative velocity and thus momentum would be lower, shall we?

Now, the impact was glancing, but some change in speed occured, simply because there was an impact. How much change in speed? Well it takes about one second for the Bozeman to cover the last 100 m of the Ent-D's nacelle, so perhaps as much as a 100 m/s difference.
What was the impact area? Hard to say, the leading edge of the Bozeman's nacelle struck, that edge is about 10 meters wide, though the corner of it actually struck. But the two nacelles slid over each other for about one hundred meters. At most that's 1000 m^2.
So, 2.4e10 kg*m/s over 1000m^2 over an impact time of again, one second. So a pressure of some 2.4e7 N/m^2. Or 244 tons of force per m^2. With a hull some 30-40 cm thick, and that is merely an average.
But, these numbers are shakey at best, useless at somewhat worse than best and go downhill from there. SO,
A) the numbers I crunched are likely wrong,
B) the nacelle blew up from the inside, i.e. the warp coil blew up; the hull was apparently fine (except of course the clear part where the plasma burst through).

Correct, though additional hull information could be brought out from comparing its failuer to the internal pressure.

C) If my numbers are close, then the nacelle pylon, despite being very thin, didn't even twist under the stress of 2,400,000 tons of force, for an entire second.

False comparison. You know that you compare pressure in unils of Pascals for material comparison, stop being deceptive.

Your calcs, which are overly high, have the part of the hull that needs to be extremely strong failing at 24MPa
And highgrade steel fails at 260MPa

D) What ever the total force, it was the sudden impact that did the damage, not hull failure, evidenced by lack of hull debris, and lack of apparent damage when later viewed, after attitude failure, and just before core breach.

The lack of debris doesn't mean shit, the material can fail without releasing debris. Try shooting cans with a BB gun sometime. The I would love to hear how the narcell coils being driven into each other and building up the pressure until the plasma set off the fuel does not constitute material failure. Because it sure as fuck does in the real world.

E) The Bozeman, with more stable design, was not destroyed, however it also suffered no hull damage in the shot. This is more icing on the cake, as a much older starship's hull stood up just fine. It is silly to propse a more advanced starship would have a weaker hull.

The older starship also had much more material on its narcells. This protects the coils and adds to the narcell itself. It would prevent failure.

In Conclusion, it was a design flaw that destroyed the Enterprise D;

And what flaw would that be? That they used shity materials?

no hull failure was observed, and the supporting pylon apparently can support the entire weight of the battle section, plus some.

No hull failure was observed, except for crushing the coils and causing a pressure buildup that destroyed the ship.

I fail to see how this is some kind of bitchslap.

That's because you are nowhere near as smart as you like to pretend you are.

[Robert Walper]

and lets just totally ignore the fact that hte Enterprise was backing up meaning the relative velocity and thus momentum would be lower, shall we?

Not true. The Enterprise was stationary. Picard ordered the helmsmen "Back us off Ensign. Nice and slow." To which the helmsmen replied "Engines not responding sir."

Furthermore, the E-D's eventual solution was to decompress the main shuttle bay, pushing it forward. While we know the E-D was not in fact moving, the explosive reaction would've cancelled out any reverse movement and vastly hindered any forward speed.

[Ender]

I always was under the impression that the structrual integraty fields were hull hugging/ hull entwined. And since soace isn't empty there's a godo chance that they redxuce the effects of friction...

Not really. SIF appears to artificaly increase the strength of materials it encompases. This means melting and boiling points increase, stress points increase, etc...

Melting and boiling are part of toughness, different property. It is unlikely it improves all of them as with real materials it is a tradeoff - increasing strength and hardness also increase how britle a meterial is and makes it less ductile and less tough.

The actual material used might not be massively strong, but when you factor in SIF (and that it appears to never fail)

There have been a few instances. When Voyager hit the ice planet IIRC. Or was that mass lightening?

[Ender]

and lets just totally ignore the fact that hte Enterprise was backing up meaning the relative velocity and thus momentum would be lower, shall we?

Not true. The Enterprise was stationary. Picard ordered the helmsmen "Back us off Ensign. Nice and slow." To which the helmsmen replied "Engines not responding sir."

Furthermore, the E-D's eventual solution was to decompress the main shuttle bay, pushing it forward. While we know the E-D was not in fact moving, the explosive reaction would've cancelled out any reverse movement and vastly hindered any forward speed.

I thought that they were decompressing the bay in front where the Captain's Yacht came out from. Why would they blow the rear bay and increase forward thrust?

[The Yosemite Bear]

because some writers can't even figure out basic grade school physics?

[Robert Walper]

I thought that they were decompressing the bay in front where the Captain's Yacht came out from.

No. The solution was devised by Riker. Quote "Decompress main shuttle bay, the explosive reaction should kick us out of the way." After which Data suggested the tractor beam, which failed.

Why would they blow the rear bay and increase forward thrust?

They weren't moving at all. The E-D had come to a full stop relative to the temporal anomaly. The explosive reaction was successful in kicking the E-D forward and avoiding the collision.

[The Silence and I]

Ender, your points concerning shields hinge on one piece of evidence: the blue tint. I must admit, I never saw such a thing; however I went along with it. But your point concerning temperatures made me take a closer look. This screen cap shows a much closer view, and I still see no blue, how about you?

So you pick and choose your evidence. You just love reconfirming my opinion of you rather then changing your methods, don't you?

As a matter of fact Ender, I did not, and do not disregard Cause and Effect. I merely stated my opinion—it has no bearing on the actual debate. You may notice I am examining that episode.

Screen caps and measurements please.

Bozeman1 Bozeman2. You will note the placement of the Enterprise’s tractor beam, the saucer hull and the point of contact with the Bozeman in the first picture. It is apparent the Bozeman has not passed the forward edge of the Enterprise. 1.5 seconds later the Bozeman’s leading edge is nearly even with the Enterprise’s aft. Therefore 240m/s is conservative. I found the mass of the similar Miranda class on G2K’s volumetric page.

As others have said, the Enterprise was not backing up; however the camera’s perspective is fixed relative to the Enterprise (it rotates, that's it); your point is irrelevant.

Your calcs, which are overly high, have the part of the hull that needs to be extremely strong failing at 24MPa
And highgrade steel fails at 260MPa

I used a conservative speed; I assumed the full 10m face of the Bozeman’s nacelle struck the Enterprise instead of the sharp edge. It is likely momentum was higher, area was lower and time was constant. That means more pressure, not less. Or maybe you can my calculations are “overly high?”

You say steel fails at 260MPa, but this is meaningless. Is that shear, compression or tension? But that too is meaningless. Consider the nacelle: It is hollow, without internal support members along the impact area, and the walls are less than half a meter thick: Random cross-section of hull Now, consider the scale: The nacelle is 240x46x30m at the impact point. I find it very hard to believe that your steel nacelle would avoid becoming horribly mangled, let alone fairing better than the real one.

Finally there was a material failure. The delicate warp coils failed during the impact. The hull would have transferred the force of the impact through local, temporary deformation, and the coils shattered or something. The point is, the hull need not fail to allow the destruction of the nacelle; a local deformation is not failure—a lasting deformation or tear is, but you cannot assume a material will either be inflexible or fail.

[Metrion Cascade]

How could the Enterprise have tractored the Bozeman away from it without the Bozeman imparting any momentum at all to the Enterprise?

[Robert Walper]

How could the Enterprise have tractored the Bozeman away from it without the Bozeman imparting any momentum at all to the Enterprise?

Since simple hand phasers do the exact same thing when imparting significant momentum to enemy personnel with no observable counter reaction, it could be a yet undetermined attribute of Federation technology.

Technically, both examples are violating modern physics as we understand them, but the example on two vastly different scales would suggest a consistant physics "violation".

Of course, one could simply suggest the E-D's mass was greater enough compared to the Bozeman that it's counter reaction wasn't noticeable. But I'm fairly certain the mass difference would have to be extremely significant for the Bozeman to be moved so noticeably with the E-D apparently not budging. Given the size ratio between both ships, this doesn't seem likely unless the E-D is constructed of vastly more massive materials.

[Robert Walper]

Ender, your points concerning shields hinge on one piece of evidence: the blue tint. I must admit, I never saw such a thing; however I went along with it. But your point concerning temperatures made me take a closer look. This screen cap shows a much closer view, and I still see no blue, how about you?

I concur. Close examination of the image in question does not reveal any blue super heated gas on the re entry area of the saucer.

[The Silence and I]

How could the Enterprise have tractored the Bozeman away from it without the Bozeman imparting any momentum at all to the Enterprise?

The tractor beam may or may not "violate" physics like Walper mentioned, but it mostly redirected the flight path of the Bozeman, meaning much of its momentum was preserved. However, as the camera is fixed relative to the Enterprise, I do not think we would notice if the Enterprise started moving from imparted momentum.

[Alyeska]

How could the Enterprise have tractored the Bozeman away from it without the Bozeman imparting any momentum at all to the Enterprise?

The tractor beam may or may not "violate" physics like Walper mentioned, but it mostly redirected the flight path of the Bozeman, meaning much of its momentum was preserved. However, as the camera is fixed relative to the Enterprise, I do not think we would notice if the Enterprise started moving from imparted momentum.

Look at the movement of the Bozeman. Compare to how the Enterprise should be pushed. Movement should be noticable by looking at the Enterprise in relation to the background. We might not see the Enterprise move, but if its moving we should see the background change.

[The Silence and I]

That is a good point. I just rewatched the clip looking for changes in background; there are none. None while the Bozeman is tractored, none during the collision. I assume the stabilizers were able to compensate (mostly, anyway. Bridge personel still moved about during the impact).

[TurboPhaser]

Erm, didn't Voyager survive flying through a Binary Pulsar in Scientific Method? Now, I don't know what the conditions are between 2 stars that are directly next to each other, but I would guess it is not a picnic.

Voyager was also unshielded, so whatever forces that were present between those two Pulsars were being impacted directly onto Voyager's hull, windows, nacelles and all.

Now, considering that even getting near a star without metaphasic shields is considered very bad in ST, I think that flying between a Binary Pulsar without any sort of shields is no small feat. That, and Voyager was fairly undamaged after their trip and that the 2 Evil Scientist ships locked onto Voyager's hull blew up well before Voyager went through the stars.

And one of those ships exploded a bit while still on Voyager's hull.

Personally, unless I'm wrong and conditions between two Pulsars are just peachy, I think that is a decent example of Federation hull strength.

[The Silence and I]

Sounds like a good example to me; at least Voyager is good for a few things

[Barton]

Those people could at least reference to the front of the saucer litteraly slicing through mountains to indicate hull integrity.

Watch the last scene in Generations where Data finds Spot. The hull is clearly ripped open very broadly, as that entire compartment was in broad daylight.

Besides, Federation hulls can be ripped open by angry bugged eyed monsters in zero gravity (a S8472 did it and in zero gravity, there is very little leverage). They just aren't that strong.

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

[Gandalf]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

[Barton]

Besides, Federation hulls can be ripped open by angry bugged eyed monsters in zero gravity (a S8472 did it and in zero gravity, there is very little leverage). They just aren't that strong.

Perhaps more objective examples, like the one's Alyeska has submitted, are far more reliable sources to gauge Federation hull strength.

Species 8472's ability to tear through hull plating and SIF fields is an indication of their enormous strength and durability, not weakness of Federation hulls.

I'm certain Alyeska could rattle off several examples of Federation hulls withstanding impressive amounts of punishment and remaining intact.

VOY Fury reveals different hull strength characteristics at a given section. The cited scene hovers around the following statements.

Chakotay: "Reverse thrusters. Full power!"

Kim: "That could tear the hull apart!"

Chakotay: "Then tear it apart!"

Point being.
1st Grappling device damage Voyager’s back section.
2nd Grappling device was damage and Saucer section was intact.

[Barton]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

That particlar S8472 entity has the ability shake the ship.

[Jon]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

That particlar S8472 entity has the ability shake the ship.

lmfao. Sorry... that's pathetic, what has that got to do with getting leverage.

[Gandalf]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

That particlar S8472 entity has the ability shake the ship.

IIRC that was because tearing the hull plate off screwed with some internal systems. Like structural integrity or something.

[Robert Walper]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

That particlar S8472 entity has the ability shake the ship.

That is highly unlikely. It is far more reasonable to suggest the explosive decompression of the penetrated hull is what shook the ship.

[Robert Walper]

Besides, Federation hulls can be ripped open by angry bugged eyed monsters in zero gravity (a S8472 did it and in zero gravity, there is very little leverage). They just aren't that strong.

Perhaps more objective examples, like the one's Alyeska has submitted, are far more reliable sources to gauge Federation hull strength.

Species 8472's ability to tear through hull plating and SIF fields is an indication of their enormous strength and durability, not weakness of Federation hulls.

I'm certain Alyeska could rattle off several examples of Federation hulls withstanding impressive amounts of punishment and remaining intact.

VOY Fury reveals different hull strength characteristics at a given section. The cited scene hovers around the following statements.

Chakotay: "Reverse thrusters. Full power!"

Kim: "That could tear the hull apart!"

Chakotay: "Then tear it apart!"

Point being.
1st Grappling device damage Voyager’s back section.
2nd Grappling device was damage and Saucer section was intact.

That could also simply mean one grappling device didn't have as strong a grip as the other.

[seanrobertson]

That particlar S8472 entity has the ability shake the ship.

RValencia,

I share Jon's incredulity w/ your response. An Eight--a particular, "special" Eight no less--"shook" Voyager?

Frankly, that's the wildest story I've heard in months.

[Robert Walper]

S8472 beings’s bio-skin is the same material as S8472 Starship’s hull..

And?

You still need to get the appropriate leverage to rip the hull open.

A) Trek hull strength has been established by multiple examples.
B) Species 8472 strength has also been established by multiple examples.

The arguement of leverage is something we need to theorize on how it was accomplished, rather than dismissing the evidence of A and B because of it.

One suggestion was that Species 8472 may have gripped the hull via magnetic means. Perhaps more funky and unexplainable things go on, like Species 8472 anchoring itself in "subpace". Who knows?