Video: Bombproof Wallpaper vs. a Wrecking Ball

Wow, I guess that would work, But it seems that in order to be effective the wall paper needs to be securely fastened to a sturdy substrate at the ceiling and the floor. The wrecking ball test does not take into account that in a bomb blast those surfaces may be compromised as well. not to mention I doubt any embassy would be happy to have exposed C Channel with exposed bolts along the floor line in all of there buildings. The concept is sound, But retrofitting this into a real world building with all of the plumbing and ventilation that would exist above the ceiling line would not give you a continuous membrane and I am sure government contractors who are poorly trained to install such a thing would do a less then stellar job installing it to spec.
Also how would this system work with Drywall construction. I assume that is only meant to be applied the the exterior walls of a building, But with today's curtain wall designs you will not necessarily have a masonry surface with which to back with this stuff on the exterior of the building. So this leaves me to think that this would have to be integrated into the original building plan and not, say, as a band-aid to beef up existing buildings.

Two points:
1) wouldn't a bomb cause much more damage that a modestly-sized wrecking ball?
2) Sure, the wallpaper kept the bricks from flying inward, but it didn't prevent the wall from buckling. What happens to the room's occupants when a load-bearing wall collapses?

I think you two are missing that this wallpaper isn't going to keep damage from occurring. It's more like tempering windshields so they don't explode into life threatening pieces. Keeping a wall from turning into shrapnel will make it safer in an explosion than a wall without the wallpaper.

seems like a great little decorating item to use in earthquake country.

You can't push on a string.

The wallpaper works amazingly well when in tension, but one would expect that once the wall bows, even a little, it will collapse, as the wallpaper does nothing against compressive forces.

can this be used on on mraps and hummers

well, it's all in one word -- composite. not the paper, the wall. see, masonry is unrivaled with compression, but terrible at expansion, and this super renforced wallpaper does just that.

This is pretty cool, googled it for more info, the military is using it to prevent injuries from shrapnel caused by explosions as a few of you mentioned above.

Bad control group, guys... you need to use a variety of other materials to be convincing. How about plain wallpaper of the same thickness?

Sheet rock or Plywood would also be interesting, since rarely is brick the only thing separating inside from out.

It's always funny to read articles on incredible advances like this and then read the army of arm-chair doubters in the comments. The way I read it, nobody is claiming this material walks on water. Simply a cool retrofit that would be useful in lateral-stability situations. Good work. Don't listen to the doubters.

i agree with unitedelectric

I don't. Doubt is fundamental to science, and thus advance through empirical methods, belief without doubt is religion. I would rather have the doubting engineer build the bridge than the man who believed it would stand up after one initial test. Additionally, I am fairly certain that no one here is saying this is meritless, we are all just expressing our excitement through the propagation of new and interesting ideas related to it.

On that note, I am in favor of the composite statement. Layer this thing on both sides, and it would essentially work like a flexible lattice. However, this is not a new idea. This is exactly why (although in some ways the exact opposite of why) they started encasing steel beams in concrete for use in high rise construction. Still, very cool stuff.

This would be great to have in houses where hurricanes or tornadoes occur. It may be able to stop projectiles from going through homes.

cbathgate, you misunderstand how this works. its not a net, its a force distribution system. you don't need to anchor it, you just need it firmly attached to the wall. you could apply is to just about any surface that would allow adequate bonding.

they've done similar tests with other materials, like truck bed liner, and produced similar results. by distributing the force over a wider area, the materials prevent a single weak spot from failing and spraying dangerous shrapnel inwards. the whole wall must be acted on as a single unit instead making it more difficult to fail complete. the wall is still structurally unsound afterwards, but the people behind the wall will be alive, which is all that counts.

I wonder how this works if you used three layers of this on a poured concrete wall. One layer on the the outside, one that's inside the poured concrete and one on the other outside.

Or just in general, on the outsides of concrete that already have rebar in them. Seems like that would increase the saftey by an amazing amount since it would reduce the risk of any projectile pieces while having the strength of the rebar already inside the concrete.

Cool stuff indeed

Well the idea of this wallpaper has already been done better. Smash labs did a show about using Rhino truck bed liner to protect buildings from car bombs. Season 1, Episode 1 – Aired: 12/26/2007 Blast Proof House. The preliminary findings were very effective. Plus the fact of it being a spray on coating without the need to add additional reinforcement to hold it in place are very good. It just seems a better idea and a more efficient way of doing this.

cbathgate, you're forgetting that this is an advancement. even if it doesn't work perfect now, the fact is, it exists now which opens it up to being tweaked and perfected to something aesthetically pleasing and functional.

Seamusmac, I concur and have used Line-X to essentially bomb proof a building. The spray-on bed liner offers great adhesion. However this product has the potential to be a lot easier to retrofit an existing building with these characteristics. It is a very messy and expensive task to spray a bed liner material in situ.

NikitaJ, While the composite features are a significant reason to encase steel columns in concrete, the primary reason is for fire protection. As were reminded during the 9-11 truther discussions, steel loses strength significantly @ 1500 degrees. Long before the melting stage (I'm talkin' to you Rosie OD)!

But what happens when something is blow up INSIDE the building. When a building blows up its exploding walls release pressure so that less damage is done to the people inside. With bombproof walls the damage to anything inside (provided that the explosion is also inside) will be even more catastrophic than it already is.

i signed up just to say this because no one else seems to see how dumb this test is....if i titled something

bullproof barricade vs. a sheep would you not get the clear stupidity of the demonstration?

yes its somewhat impressive it holds the bricks from falling down, yet its a human pushing the wrecking ball, not a machine swinging it at the wall or even worse yet a bomb blowing up into the wall.... i do give it props, its kinda cool, but lets be honest and title this article

pansy swinging wrecking ball vs wall with tough wallpaper

either that or shoot a RPG at the wall, this is like popular sciences lame debunking of 9/11 by blowing up a chicken coup with a missile and comparing it to the pentagons structural integrity. lame. just lame.
FAIL massive FAIL, this is chicken wire inside a plastic frame and that's why they are not going to shoot bombs at it in the video.

Yeah who's gonna alter the standard of how wallpapers are held to get them implemented in everyone that uses them in such a way that nails are stapled to ceiling and floor alike?

If you live in a house or work in a building where the WALLS bear the load, then move out/change jobs, do whatever to GTFO because you are living/working in a death trap. Walls bearing the load. Seriously?

What if it's an incindiary bomb that burns through the wall? What if it's a cascade bomb with a bunch of explosions all at once? Especially overhead? How do you simulate those situations? What if it's a smart bomb that embeds itself in the wall, then explodes? What if it's a fat lady that just accidently bumped into the wall?

Does it come in a face cream I could apply before I come sneaking home drunk at 3:00 a.m. and my wife is madder than hell? Just wondering...

Despite the perceived shortcomings of the test, there are a number of applications that could likely benefit from this product. Of course, one would have to consider the pattern so as not to clash with the other decor.

Really interesting. Seems like it would be difficult to install retroactively but any little bit helps. I doubt it wold help building right next to the bomb but it should be able to reduce collateral damage.

-Kerberos
www.ataxi.ro

Does it come in Taupe? I hear thats very soothing. Next time we get attacked by an Army equipped with crane mounted wrecking balls,,,,we'll be all ready!. Maybe we could wallpaper some of our Humvee's and Tanks. mmmm

would this work well to line the bottom of a hovercraft to keep foam from ripping? and if so how much would it cost about.

Adam Schichtel
I like the idea of this. it will definetly save some lives

Adam Schichtel
I like the idea of this. it will definetly save some lives

This product will have many useful applications but already sounds over-hyped. There are already many building techniques which are not used because of cost. Many current buildings do not have an adequate amount of steel or wire reinforcing built in. For many applications simply mortaring a layer of wire fabric to the inside of a brick or cinder block wall would produce much the same protection at much less cost. A few years ago I was amused when a local building was slated for demolition and could not be knocked down because of all the rebar built into the walls.
Much of the success of this product will depend on cost.

This wallpaper does its job, but barely. I think they should test using:
(a) a jackhammer
(b) a sledgehammer
(c) a rifle
(d) a battering ram
And use the same piece for all four tests. This will PUSH IT!
P.S. Make the piece BIG to make use of leverage.

Now that's neat! I wonder what would have happened if the bombproof wallpaper had been on both sides? You'd obviously have to build the building with this in mind, but I'd be curious to see the results.

www.netforensics.com

I doubt that this wallpaper is actually able to protect from a bomb, because I think that a bomb will cause much more damage then a wrecking-ball showed on the video does.

belas3,
the author of http://hubpages.com/hub/Girl-Wallpaper

I'd like to see the video comparing chicken wire, rebar, osb etc to this product. What does it compare to and how much does it cost? Numbers please, not just video.

I wonder how this works if you used three layers of this on a poured concrete wall. One layer on the the outside, one that's inside the poured concrete and one on the other outside.
www.promdresspicture.com
Or just in general, on the outsides of concrete that already have rebar in them. Seems like that would increase the saftey by an amazing amount since it would reduce the risk of any projectile pieces while having the strength of the rebar already inside the concrete.

What does it say about the world that we need innovations like bomb-proof wallpaper? Politics aside, this is an impressive invention, and you can’t argue with the results. Though as the first comment points out, the limiting factor here is the wallpaper’s need to be strongly anchored above and below. Though I would expect that even in a truly devastating explosion the simple containment of flying debris would doubtless save many lives.

Regards,
Simon
www.eurocell.co.uk

Je me demande comment cela fonctionne si vous avez utilisé trois couches de la présente sur un mur de béton coulé. Une couche à l'extérieur de la, celui qui est à l'intérieur du béton coulé et un autre à l'extérieur.

Ou tout simplement, en général, sur les côtés extérieurs de béton qui ont déjà des barres d'armature en eux. On dirait que cela augmenter la sécurité par une quantité impressionnante car elle permettrait de réduire le risque de tout projectile pièces tout en ayant la force de la barre d'armature déjà à l'intérieur du béton.

La récré en effet

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Onko tulla Taupe? Kuulen thats erittäin rauhoittava. Seuraavan kerran saamme hyökkäsivät armeijan varustettu nosturilla asennettu raivaus pallot,,,, me kaikki valmiina!. Ehkä voisimme taustakuva joitakin Humvee-ja säiliöt. mmmm

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