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Old 08-26-2016, 01:21 PM   #1
Tallor
 
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Default Hyperdense Shielding?

Packed sand does a decent job of stopping radiation. Bricks and concrete are better. Steel is better still, and lead is typically considered the best.

But lead isn't really the most dense. For instance, depleted uranium is significantly more dense (although much more pricey) and could make for thin but powerful shielding.

This got me thinking--what about TL11 "hyperdense" materials? Perhaps cheaply producing osmium or some other ultra-dense material could produce even thinner shielding for the same mass!

What do you think?
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Old 08-26-2016, 01:24 PM   #2
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

TL 11 Hyperdense stuff is probably a lot denser than osmium. I think it's moving closer to neutronium. So, yeah, I'd imagine it has amazing PF, if you can stand the weight of a (thin!!) shell it of all around you.
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Old 08-26-2016, 01:28 PM   #3
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

Once you invoke supersciences like hyperdense materials, I don't think anyone CAN argue with your final values much.
I know it doesn't have the ever loved caret, but there is no verified way to create it that doesn't break or alter physics as we know it. That makes it superscience.
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:13 PM   #4
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
Packed sand does a decent job of stopping radiation. Bricks and concrete are better. Steel is better still, and lead is typically considered the best.

But lead isn't really the most dense. For instance, depleted uranium is significantly more dense (although much more pricey) and could make for thin but powerful shielding.

This got me thinking--what about TL11 "hyperdense" materials? Perhaps cheaply producing osmium or some other ultra-dense material could produce even thinner shielding for the same mass!

What do you think?
There is no RAW exploitation of how dense hyper dense is. But given that David is a Traveller fan and Ultra-Tech does borrow a few things from it (The 4mm Gauss rifle is a direct lift and the way plasma guns are described are very close to how they work in Traveller), there's a good chance that hyper dense has a mass of about 16g/cc.
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:23 PM   #5
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
Packed sand does a decent job of stopping radiation. Bricks and concrete are better. Steel is better still, and lead is typically considered the best.
Depends what type of radiation you're stopping. Lead is good against moderate energy ionizing radiation, including gamma rays, but it's cruddy against neutrons and cosmic rays.
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But lead isn't really the most dense.
Density helps with thickness, but in terms of weight what matters for shielding is how the electron shells are set up, so mostly you just want higher atomic number.
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This got me thinking--what about TL11 "hyperdense" materials? Perhaps cheaply producing osmium or some other ultra-dense material could produce even thinner shielding for the same mass!
All depends on what 'hyperdense' actually is. It's not really all that dense (based on its performance, under 10^2g/cc; white dwarf material is upwards of 10^6g/cc, neutron star material upwards of 10^12) and it's not clear why you'd want compressed matter anyway, either one of things would explode violently if taken into an area of low pressure, such as a planet.
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:27 PM   #6
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
This got me thinking--what about TL11 "hyperdense" materials? Perhaps cheaply producing osmium or some other ultra-dense material could produce even thinner shielding for the same mass!

What do you think?
It's absolutely traditional (collapsium anybody?) but of limited utility. The major problem with radiation shielding isn't how thick it is, but how much it weighs, and it's effectiveness is basically flat in terms of weight. Indeed shielding is often discussed in units of grams per square cm, ignoring what it's made of entirely.
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:39 PM   #7
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

How can you say the density of hyperdense isn't known? It gains 1.5 times the weight. You can use that with mass and volume to calculate densities =)

But from it's description they are using particles to replace components of the atom with muons which is like... no idea what that'd do XD
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:45 PM   #8
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

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How can you say the density of hyperdense isn't known? It gains 1.5 times the weight.
Yes, but it doesn't say that the volume remains constant.
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Old 08-26-2016, 02:53 PM   #9
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

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Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
How can you say the density of hyperdense isn't known? It gains 1.5 times the weight. You can use that with mass and volume to calculate densities =)

But from it's description they are using particles to replace components of the atom with muons which is like... no idea what that'd do XD
Heh, now we just need to know how much of a blades edge is turned into hyper dense and we're on our way :D

There are a few problems with using muons... they don't last long... they decay in seconds into gamma rays and the like and if you have enough of them to form the edge of a blade.... the energy realsesd when they decay is going to cause a little... boom.... and by little I mean.... like a nuclear bomb...

Edit
I came across an old post by Anthony where he said that hyper dense has twice the strength of Traveller's bounded super dense.... and sure enough it fits. Bounded super dense is 14× stronger then RHA steel and if hyper dense twice that it has DR1,960/in.

Ok, let's test this out and see if it works. Going off of the progression in Spaceships hyper dense has a WM (weight modifier) of 0.4 and If hyper dense is modeled off of super dense it has a density 1.875× that of iron. To figure a materials WM we take its density in pounds per cubic foot, divide that by 12 and then take the product and dived it the materials DR/in. That gives us (914/12)/1,960 which equals 0.039, which would be rounded up to 0.4.

So it's safe to say that we now know hyper denses DR/in and density!
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Last edited by The_Ryujin; 08-26-2016 at 10:48 PM.
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Old 08-30-2016, 12:08 AM   #10
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Default Re: Hyperdense Shielding?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Ryujin View Post
Heh, now we just need to know how much of a blades edge is turned into hyper dense and we're on our way :D

There are a few problems with using muons... they don't last long... they decay in seconds into gamma rays and the like and if you have enough of them to form the edge of a blade.... the energy realsesd when they decay is going to cause a little... boom.... and by little I mean.... like a nuclear bomb...

Edit
I came across an old post by Anthony where he said that hyper dense has twice the strength of Traveller's bounded super dense.... and sure enough it fits. Bounded super dense is 14× stronger then RHA steel and if hyper dense twice that it has DR1,960/in.

Ok, let's test this out and see if it works. Going off of the progression in Spaceships hyper dense has a WM (weight modifier) of 0.4 and If hyper dense is modeled off of super dense it has a density 1.875× that of iron. To figure a materials WM we take its density in pounds per cubic foot, divide that by 12 and then take the product and dived it the materials DR/in. That gives us (914/12)/1,960 which equals 0.039, which would be rounded up to 0.4.

So it's safe to say that we now know hyper denses DR/in and density!
Sweet! Good work.
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