Joint Strength vs Stress of augmetics

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-26 12:47am

Powered armor is this wonderful thing that enables the wearer to run at insanse speed, according to some. For example, Spartan Mjolnir armor supposedly allows the wearer to run up to 60 km/h (about 40 miles an hour, or about twice as fast as a human being is normally capable of running).

This insanely high speed, in addition to the weight of the powered armor brings some questions to mind.
First is how does the wearer control the suit? (ie, tell it to run faster than he can move his legs),

what will this excess speed do to your ankles, knees, and hip joints?

Will the ligaments holding your bones together be able to withstand this stress?

What about the tendons securing muscles to bone?

Will they be able to withstand the stress or would we expect to see a shitload of stress fractures, tendonitis, and joint injuries as a result of this new type of armor?

I suppose another question worth asking is: how does the armor itself move? What kind of actuators are in place to move this big mass of metal?

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-12-26 01:20am

Well, in the first Halo book, the Master Chief does tear his Achilles tendon when exerting himself too greatly. If you really demand a page number, I'll get it for you, but right now, I'm too lazy.

So yes, it must damage one's joints to a considerable degree.

Coalition · Post by **Coalition** » 2005-12-26 02:26am

Abou the only thing the wearer can do, is trigger an excess reaction in the power armored legs, so by twitching your legs, it triggers the full run cycle. Other than that, you would have to be completely relaxed, to reduce the wear and tear.

Even then, good medical technology will be needed to repair joint damage afterwards, not to mention training to trigger the legs properly, then relax, all in the middle of combat.

Koolaidkirby · Post by **Koolaidkirby** » 2005-12-26 12:10pm

well... powerfull power armor does tend to damage you moving like that, an excellent example (again from halo) is when they first test out the SPARTANS Mjolnir armor on a regular marine, when he tries to slowly raise his arm, it moves to fast and the sudden start and stop shatters his bones and his responding movements after that kill him. a realistic battle armor would need offer only some improvment on the movement and strength of a human, unless they were augmented to withstand the strain on their bodies (again, as seen in halo)

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-26 12:16pm

wolveraptor wrote:Well, in the first Halo book, the Master Chief does tear his Achilles tendon when exerting himself too greatly. If you really demand a page number, I'll get it for you, but right now, I'm too lazy.

So yes, it must damage one's joints to a considerable degree.

Fall of Reach, where he tests the suit with shields. Don't worry, I do know what you're talking about, but unfortunately it makes it seem like a torn achilles is no big deal. I guess Eric Nylund wasn't a medical man, because John 117 wouldn't be summoning every ounce of resolve he had, because his leg simply wouldn't work with a torn achilles. I guess it is possible that the suit simply ran for him, because it is controlled by his thoughts, and his damaged leg was just along for the ride.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-12-26 12:35pm

wilfulton wrote:
wolveraptor wrote:Well, in the first Halo book, the Master Chief does tear his Achilles tendon when exerting himself too greatly. If you really demand a page number, I'll get it for you, but right now, I'm too lazy.

So yes, it must damage one's joints to a considerable degree.
Fall of Reach, where he tests the suit with shields. Don't worry, I do know what you're talking about, but unfortunately it makes it seem like a torn achilles is no big deal. I guess Eric Nylund wasn't a medical man, because John 117 wouldn't be summoning every ounce of resolve he had, because his leg simply wouldn't work with a torn achilles. I guess it is possible that the suit simply ran for him, because it is controlled by his thoughts, and his damaged leg was just along for the ride.

Wasn't the M.C.'s basic structure physically augmented to be able to withstand the stresses imparted on him by the armor? (I have not played the game for awhile, so my memory's a bit fuzzy).

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-26 05:39pm

Molyneux wrote: Wasn't the M.C.'s basic structure physically augmented to be able to withstand the stresses imparted on him by the armor? (I have not played the game for awhile, so my memory's a bit fuzzy).

Supposedly, some ceramic additions to the bones, the story goes into a lot of detail about making the bones stronger and making the muscles stronger, but appears to gloss over important things such as making ligaments and tendons stronger. You don't need to be an orthopedic surgeon to understand how this might not be a good thing.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-12-26 07:36pm

It would be best to keep the wearer fully organic, since that's the whole damn advantage in a biological organism, it being able to use a set base of abundant minerals rather than fancy ceramics or metals. I'm sure through genetic engineering you could produce far better protein structures for the various joints and muscle supports that would better tolerate the powered exoskeleton. It would also help if such a suit was damaged and you had such powerful weapons, since relying solely on something mechanical that can breakdown would be silly, so geneered soldiers would still have an advantage. Much like Space Marines.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-12-26 11:41pm

Actually, I believe the tendon didn't completely snap in two. It just tore, so there is some chance he could have been able to stand despite the injury.

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-28 12:01am

wolveraptor wrote:Actually, I believe the tendon didn't completely snap in two. It just tore, so there is some chance he could have been able to stand despite the injury.

You may be right, if the tendon had snapped in two, I believe your calf muscle would become a third ass cheek. And as I said, without it, you can't stand, period.

Here we go:

"Fall of Reach p 264" wrote: He could feel his Achilles tendon tear, but he didn't slow. He crossed the half-kilometer stretch in seventeen seconds flat and skidded to halt.

As someone who has had an achilles tendon injury, I can speak from experience that TANFFAA (They Are no Fucking Fun at All!) I came down with tendonitis (which is a mere inflammation) from doing too much running, and it put me down for a month and a half on a diet of 500 mg of naproxen a day.

And it feels like someone jabbing a dagger into the tendon when it happens, it's a sharp, stabbing pain that doesn't go away, and for a person to run 500 meters in 17 seconds (29.4 m/s or 105.9 km/h)--roughtly 65 miles an hour (with or without this condition) is purely in the masturbatory realm. Doubly so for any humanoid (a biped animal which is not build for high speed).

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-12-29 12:11am

I like Mr. Heinline's idea on the superhuman speed. Give them jet assist and retrothurst.

now why is it that halo folks forgot that bit?

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-29 12:15am

The Yosemite Bear wrote:I like Mr. Heinline's idea on the superhuman speed. Give them jet assist and retrothurst.

now why is it that halo folks forgot that bit?

What the jumpjets or the superhuman speed? I'm told I'm supposed to run twice as fast as a normal person and dodge bullets and plasma bolts and shit, but when I try it in the game for real, it generally doesn't work out too terribly well

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2005-12-29 12:36am

Exactly

they had superhuman strength, not superhuman reflexes in the Book version of ST. The only way they got really fast was called low level flying.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2005-12-29 02:50am

Basically YB summed it up but to go into slightly more detail: The powered armor basically consisted of a suit with reactive padding inside (i.e. when you move your arm whichever side you pressure is felt and reacted to by the suit) everywhere except the head. The system as a whole is a strength mutiplier but not a speed multiplier. You never run faster than you can run at least in the sense that your legs will never cycle any faster than they could where you not wearing the armor. The difference is (and would be the case for any powered armor most likely) that what pushes you forward is some sort of hydraulic motor which can exert more force on the ground. Thus for every step you take you could go further (sort of bounding along) but the important point is that the cycle your legs go through isn't any faster than you could accomplish without the armor. IN ST if you really want to go fast then you kick in your jets but even then you're only doing about 35-40 mph IIRC.