Trek Hulls

[Worlds Spanner]

I was browsing various sites and found this:

"tritanium
Material, form of -> tanium. Used in Federation starship hulls. Tritanium is
21.4 times as hard as diamond."

Does anyone know if this is canon? If so, it would put a hard number on the strength of Federation armor (or non-armor as the case may be).

Of course, I don't have my Tech. Manual handy so I'm not sure how much of the stuff is in Trek Hulls.

[DarthBlight]

As far as I know, this is not canon. And if that stuff is harder than diamond (incredibly unlikely, but I will leave that to people who are more informed in metallurgy than me) then it is not a very good shock absorber if a tap to the nacelle can cause the whole ship to blow up.

[Alyeska]

Trek armor and ship hulls is rather strange. In Generations the E-D saucer goes through a pretty impressive crash and only two windows are broken through hull stress. Voyager impacted a glacier at rather high speed with only minor hull buckling. It was within a glacier for another 20 years and wasn't harmed at all. A Jem'Hadar attackship slammed into a planet so hard it kinda turned the Jem'Hadar crew into a gooey mess yet it retained a space worth hull. The Delta Flyer crashed into a planet and burrowed through more then a KM of rock. At the same time you have the likes of The Jem'Hadar DS9 when a Jem'Hadar attackship slams into the Oddessy and kills it. Tears of the Prophets DS9 also has Attackships tearing through Klingon ships. Last of all there is the Nemesis crash scene.

Kinda pisses me off that there aren't any Trek Tech consultants on hand to keep this stuff from happening. That or the writers just ignore the advisors and that causes the problem.

[Darth Wong]

It's possible to rationalize all that inconsistency with SIF's and shields, though. And sitting in a glacier for years is no big deal if the temperature is consistent.

[Alyeska]

It's possible to rationalize all that inconsistency with SIF's and shields, though. And sitting in a glacier for years is no big deal if the temperature is consistent.

Thing is, Glaicers are very much like rivers. They have active flows and even differen "currents". That is why after 45 years in Greenland a group of WW2 era planes were nearly torn to shreds. Voyager had multiple problems. One of them being it was without power to keep its hull together. We already know through egineering wise that an Intrepid shouldn't hold together. Voyager survived years above the ice, then survived the ice flows itself. That is fairly impressive all things considered.

However, I have to agree. The shield and SIF issues are probably the best explinations for ship crash damage to be different then ship colission damage.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

What does more harder than diamond mean? After all, the quality of armor is not based on one thing.

[Worlds Spanner]

After all, the quality of armor is not based on one thing.

Which is why we'd need to take a look at the actual hull make-up, which evades me, although I think that it's layered rather than alloyed.

Also, shock absorbtion is only one piece of it. There's also energy disappation.

As for what harder than diamond means, diamond is the hardest substance currently known to man (rates a 10 on the standard hardness scale) so the figure is something that someone somewhere made up to mean "fucking hard."

[Marc Xavier]

I think the quote about 21.4 times as hard as diamond is from the TOS episode "Obsession," spoken by Mr. Spock.

[AdmiralKanos]

Actually, ultra-hard armour is BAD. I wish the people who wrote sci-fi would learn this.

[Marc Xavier]

Because extremely hard materials tend to be brittle?

[Worlds Spanner]

Makes sense.

[Sokar]

Because extremely hard materials tend to be brittle?

Exactly, its actually better for 'armor' to give somewhat inorder to better absorb an impact hit.

[Alyeska]

The difference between using a Diamond and Uranium for armor is this. Diamond is hard, and hence when great amounts of pressure is applied it can shatter. Uranium is dense and resists pressure much better and is more likely to ablate in the area hit rather then the entire armor surface being destroyed.

Is that a correct assesment?

[Wrath]

The difference between using a Diamond and Uranium for armor is this. Diamond is hard, and hence when great amounts of pressure is applied it can shatter. Uranium is dense and resists pressure much better and is more likely to ablate in the area hit rather then the entire armor surface being destroyed.

Is that a correct assesment?

having a part time job in a night club an example of it would be, the 2 different types of pint glass you can get.

for safetly reasons most night clubs use specially made pint glass which are harder then normal glass's but when they break they shatter instead of cracking. meaning there are no sharp egdes for people to get cut on.

but when it shatters all the glass goes , if it cracks most of the glass is left intact. so your explaintion is right yeah.

[Ender]

You don't want a hard armor, or necessarily a strong one (armor and frame being seperate things, you wnat a strong frame). You want a tough one, as toughness is it's ability to absorb energy.

[Howedar]

However, as a part of a composite armor system a hard section does have its uses (blunting KE projectiles, for example).

[aerius]

You don't want a hard armor, or necessarily a strong one (armor and frame being seperate things, you wnat a strong frame). You want a tough one, as toughness is it's ability to absorb energy.

Actually you do. Armor needs to be hard so projectiles don't punch holes through it, tough so it doesn't shatter, and strong so that it doesn't tear apart. For example 4130 cro-moly steel is pretty tough and half-decently strong, but it's not all that hard at all. Projectiles such as bullets will dent and/or punch holes through a 1/4" sheet of 4130 without much trouble, it's just too soft. M2 tool steel on the other hand is extremely hard and quite strong, but it's lacking in toughness, projectiles will shatter it like glass.

Ideally you want something like AF1410 or Aermet 100 which are high strength, high toughness, and relatively hard alloys. A sheet of Aermet 100 the thickness of a credit card will stop most handgun bullets without being dented. 4130 will get dented by BB pellets at that thickness, M2 will survive BB pellets but get shattered by handgun bullets, and most materials will get clean holes punched through them.

[Ender]

You don't want a hard armor, or necessarily a strong one (armor and frame being seperate things, you wnat a strong frame). You want a tough one, as toughness is it's ability to absorb energy.

Actually you do. Armor needs to be hard so projectiles don't punch holes through it, tough so it doesn't shatter, and strong so that it doesn't tear apart. For example 4130 cro-moly steel is pretty tough and half-decently strong, but it's not all that hard at all. Projectiles such as bullets will dent and/or punch holes through a 1/4" sheet of 4130 without much trouble, it's just too soft. M2 tool steel on the other hand is extremely hard and quite strong, but it's lacking in toughness, projectiles will shatter it like glass.

Ideally you want something like AF1410 or Aermet 100 which are high strength, high toughness, and relatively hard alloys. A sheet of Aermet 100 the thickness of a credit card will stop most handgun bullets without being dented. 4130 will get dented by BB pellets at that thickness, M2 will survive BB pellets but get shattered by handgun bullets, and most materials will get clean holes punched through them.

I was speaking in terms of space combat where energy weapons are used and SIF fulfills the place of a strong armor and nav deflectors the hard parts. For realiztic ground combat I agree totally, but I was not looking at it from that POV.

[aerius]

for safetly reasons most night clubs use specially made pint glass which are harder then normal glass's but when they break they shatter instead of cracking. meaning there are no sharp egdes for people to get cut on.

but when it shatters all the glass goes , if it cracks most of the glass is left intact. so your explaintion is right yeah.

Sounds like they're made of safety glass like car windows. They're heat-treated so that the outer surfaces of the glass are under compression which makes them harder to break, and when they do break they shatter into little cubes instead of jagged shards. Makes it harder to use a pint glass as a weapon in a barfight, you can still whack people with them but you can't really cut them up much.

[Worlds Spanner]

So aerius, what would one want ideally in armor?

An alloy of something hard, something tough, and something strong, or layers of all three?

Obviously the layers are bad because the outer one has it's weakness, then the next one does, etc. I guess I'm wondering how much of a loss in each metals strong point it is to alloy them.

[Wrath]

Actually you do. Armor needs to be hard so projectiles don't punch holes through it, tough so it doesn't shatter, and strong so that it doesn't tear apart. For example 4130 cro-moly steel is pretty tough and half-decently strong, but it's not all that hard at all. Projectiles such as bullets will dent and/or punch holes through a 1/4" sheet of 4130 without much trouble, it's just too soft. M2 tool steel on the other hand is extremely hard and quite strong, but it's lacking in toughness, projectiles will shatter it like glass.

Ideally you want something like AF1410 or Aermet 100 which are high strength, high toughness, and relatively hard alloys. A sheet of Aermet 100 the thickness of a credit card will stop most handgun bullets without being dented. 4130 will get dented by BB pellets at that thickness, M2 will survive BB pellets but get shattered by handgun bullets, and most materials will get clean holes punched through them.

whats the amour they use on the british challenger 2 tanks I believe thats the strongest armour on the planet right now...

[Howedar]

The strongest armor on the planet would probably be the doors on top of missile silos, which are usually in the neighborhood of three feet of steel.