IRONMAN

[*zeo]

Hey, who wants to discuss the new IRONMAN movie?

We could also have IRONMAN trivia, like who knows what a Repulsor is?

[guyverfanatic]

I saw the Iron Man movie with my fiancee. I thought it was great.

I'm glad that in the movie, Iron Man's armor is also powered by the same source that keeps him alive that way he won't run out of juice.

[Juggernought]

From what i've seen on the movies i think the repulsers work as energy discharged from the device in Tony's chest. It may even work through kinetic energy as well.

Yea i think one of the main reasons Tony made the suit capable of being powered by his chest piece technology would stop other's from using the suit and thereby stealing his weapons tech.

Also War Machine is slated to be appearing in the sequel, can't wait to see how they tie in the development of that armor to the next unknown villain(s)

[guyverfanatic]

From what i've seen on the movies i think the repulsers work as energy discharged from the device in Tony's chest. It may even work through kinetic energy as well.

Yea i think one of the main reasons Tony made the suit capable of being powered by his chest piece technology would stop other's from using the suit and thereby stealing his weapons tech.

Also War Machine is slated to be appearing in the sequel, can't wait to see how they tie in the development of that armor to the next unknown villain(s)

My guess is that Tony will alter/upgrade the Mark II to turn it into the War Machine Armor.

[*zeo]

Repulsors are a derivative of particle beam weapon technology. Originally it was a composite emitter of tri-laser and particle beam emitter. The tri-laster would rapidly rotate and create an ionized path through the air through which the particle stream is then fired. Giving a one-two punch.

The repulsor effect was described as a subatomic effect that created a repulsing effect. Some of his more advance Armors in the comic could even use the repulsor technology to basically fly and self position each part of the armor.

So kinda like the Guyver it would literally wrap itself around him.

The movie introduces a new device called simply the "Arc". This is a totally sci-fi power generator, basically working much like a zero point energy generator like the ZPM's on Stargate.

The closest we're likely to get to something like that is some sort of micro-fusion reactor.

The first miniature Arc he created could generate 3 GJ/s, while the 2nd improved reactor could generate around 4 times that. Incidently, 3 GJ/s equates to 3GW of power, or approximately four million horsepower.

Which is like 15 times greater than the power of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier nuclear reactor, which in turn means the 2nd device granted him around 60 times the power generated by that type of Nuclear Reactor.

The movie repulsors are a little different, encorportating a magnetic field pulsor effect. Probably using particle stream to produce a ionic plasma propulsion (this is why he could use both his hands and boots to fly). This is probably also part of the Arc technology, which is why the armor works so well with the Arc, besides getting its power from it.

In the Comic Ironman got his power from batteries, usually stored on hip pods in most models and later destributed throughout the armor and assited with the ability to absorb energy from a variety of external sources.

Anyway, next trivia question...

What was Ironman's origin in the original comic?

[Juggernought]

I believe he was created as a poster boy for anti-communism. But how the idea of the armor came to being remained the same.

I actually got a question. How does the armor handle the G forces during flight? Since all fighter jets have some kind of limiters as well the pilots wearing G-suits, i'm sure Tony had to take these forces into consideration.

[*zeo]

Actual he was the poster child for anti-war sentiment, still is really. Remember Tony starts out as a weapons manufacturer and in both the original and movie origins that comes back to haunt him big time.

Anyway, the original comic book origin mirrored the movie's depiction. Except it took place during the Vietnam War and similarly Tony got shrapnel in his chest.

An Asian physician helped him and created a sort of iron lung like chest plate which kept the shrapnel from reaching his heart. Tony improved on it to make himself mobile and then together they augmented the chest plate with the rest of the armor and he escaped. Similarly the physician died during the escape and Tony dedicates his life to making things right.

The Movie version was a little bit more realistic, except for the Arc device and Tony surviving Crashing hard enough to break the Armor and not be seriously hurt. Also instead of a chest plate Tony just has the Arc in a chest cavity, which is a lot easier to hide.

Another change, the movie version emphasized flight. The original took longer to perfect that technology and didn't have the benefit of the Arc to fuel the Armor and so had to survive on battery power alone.

As for how Tony survives, the armor is not just solid armor. It's layered and each layer has a different purpose that works together. So the armor provides padding as well as armor. Also the Armor spreads impact force over the whole armor, so it isn't localized as much.

Though the movie did take heavy liberties with this, the comic did come up with explainations like the repulsor technology was also adapted as a inertia dampener to both deal with G force and impacts. The armor also regulates temperature and provides a level of life support.

The comic also uses more advance ideas on armor design that approaches Nano-technology, including polarized armor, 3D mesh structure for both comfort and extremely strong structural integrity, and force fields.

The movie version didn't explain any of that and yet still withstood attacks that would have obliterated a tank. Though the flight characteristics of the movie Armor was more realistic and using the hand pulsors for secondary thrusters for better control makes good sense.

Speaking of which, who knows how Ironman originally got his enemies frozen?

[*zeo]

*bump*

No takers?

Okay, how about a link showing a video of a man in real life with a flying suit?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europ ... index.html

[guyverfanatic]

*bump*

No takers?

Okay, how about a link showing a video of a man in real life with a flying suit?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europ ... index.html

That was pretty sweet.

[Juggernought]

My only guess for freezing his enemies is either he had another armor capable of thermal manipulation or he had created the technology of suspended animation (perhaps to aid in self healing) and found another use of imprisoning his enemies effectively rather than relying on conventional gov't prisons.

[*zeo]

Actually it was very simple, he used a freon canister in his old armor that was used to help regulate the armor temperature and also to help him resist fire, etc. that would otherwise cook him inside his armor.

So he'd eject one of the canisters and throw it at his target, it breaks and covers the target in freon and they freeze.

Course the modern Ironman can't use that trick anymore since they banned freon

Next Question... What were the hip pods/discs originally for?

[Aranor]

I am guessing they were servos to assist the lower extremeties. I want to say they later became batteries.

[McAvoy]

The pods were battery packs. Some versions of the armor has them and some don't. The Classic Armor had them, while the Silver Centurion armor did not, then they reappeared back on on the Neo-Classic Armor and the subsequent Coffee Boot Armor.

In the Comics, Stark got a piece of shrapnel stuck in his chest and he used high powred magnets to keep it from eventually penetrating his heart. Stark's whole armor up until the early ninties were based on that technology.

Also, there was multiple versions of the armor between the Grey suit and the Classic Armor. There was the gold armor which had a skirt and was painted gold but overall similar to how the Grey armor looked like. Then there was the Riveted Face plate armor that had horns and looked very similar to the Classic Armor and incidiently the Hero Reborn armors. Over time there were various changes until he came up with the Classic suit. Even then he tinkered with the armor, such as making it lighter, more resistent to heat (some enemies could melt his armor), and of course the infamous nose.

[Aranor]

Here's a question of which I do not know the answer. Now theat (In the comics) Tony has the Extremis virus. What has become of the artificial heart the sentient armor put in him? Is it gone and a new one regenerated? still there? Does he consiously control it? And being Ultron technology is there a trheat of the Ultron id infecting him?

Ok...couple questions.

[*zeo]

Hmm, I don't believe they ever clarified what happened to the artificial heart after he got the Extremis.

Technically he could have regenerated his own heart, since the Extremis allows him to regenerate whole organs. But it is possible it is still there...

The artificial heart was created from Tony's sentient armor when it sacrificed itself to save him, this before Ultron got involved with the remains of the sentient armor.

So aside from having tech inside his body that could possibly be hacked by Ultron he's pretty safe.

The base layer of his armor is now stored in his body, so he also probably doesn't have to worry about keeping it charged anymore. Though I think the nature of the Extremis means he probably got a regular human heart now.

[Aranor]

Hmm. How about this. How feasable is the iron man armor? Let us bypass the power supply need for now.

[*zeo]

Define feasable?

It basically depends on whether you are considering something that would basically be an IronMan or would your definition be something as powerful as the comic book character is?

Realistically we are already developing exo-armors that can give a man up to five times their normal strength.

Jet Packs for one man flight have been around since the 60's, it's just they don't have the fuel to last very long (about 30-40 seconds at up to 60 MPH). But research is still developing them and recently they figured a simple change of fuel could improve them (new model uses 5 instead of 6 gallon tanks for less weight and can fly for up to 9 minutes at up to 83 MPH for about 11 mile range).

Present armor technology would not allow you to survive anything close to what the IronMan armor can but present armor can allow you to withstand small arms fire and new nano technology armor will soon be out to make every soldier practically bullet proof and able to withstand small explosive munitions as well. Also concepts like polarized armor and plasma shields are also slowly becoming a reality.

The present Dragonskin body armor for example can withstand a frag grenade at point blank range and repeated hits from even an AK-47 for example and future armor will be even tougher.

Repulsors are based on particle beam weapon technology, which really exists. It's just it takes a lot of power to use them but if we could solve the power needs then they could become practical. Just like Rail Guns are appearing on next gen Navy ships and will replace traditional gun powder guns.

Which leads to power systems, they are developing better batteries and power generating methods that could revolutionize what we could do on the go.

100 years from now we actually then have an Ironman, with a micro-fusion reactor to power it and finally make the dream a reality.

Alternatively though you won't have to wait as long for a flying suit, sky divers are already working on that like the video clip from CNN I already gave.

The last issue of Popular Science also has a nice article on the present state of affairs on the research leading towards our own real world IronMan.

Get the issue (May) if you really want to see what they think will be standard issue for the military by 2020. And then you could imagine just how close a top of the line tech suite could give us in the not too distant future.

[*zeo]

Okay, just for comparison and to get some perspective...

I did some math... We know from what was stated in the movie that the 2nd version of the chest Arc device could produce about 12 Gigajoules...

1 joule equals 0.737562149277 ft·lbf (foot-pound force).

So 12 Gigajoules = 8850745791.324 ft-lbf. or about 4.4 Megatons of thrust if 100% of it went into propulsion. (Remember this is 60 times the energy produced by the reactors of a modern nuclear Super Carrier, which is used to push those massive ships through the water at up to over 30 knots)

Though we can be sure IronMan never put the full power into thrust as that was just a measure of the full power of the Arc device, the original 3 GJ device couldn't even power the Armor for very long.

Probably because even though it had a 3GJ rating it probably didn't have enough reactant material to fuel it at that power level for very long, 15 minutes according to the movie since that's about as long as it was able to power the Mark 3 armor in the final battle scene.

But this does give us an idea of how much power the armor used, since it used up 3 GJ in just about 15 minutes.

While the 2nd device probably had more reactant and worked more efficiently, as well as having 4 times the maximum power output.

We can figure out how much thrust Iron did have though since he demonstrates this during the test phase of his armor development, with 1% being sufficient to life his weight and hover and 2.5% for a short wobbly hover flight around his garage.

So we can give a base thrust per percentage of power to about 200 pounds of thrust per percent.

Meaning Ironman's maximum thrust is about 20,000 pounds, not counting the additional thrust from the palm devices.

So when Ironman went super sonic he was using somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 pounds of thrust, which just happens to be about the thrust capacity of a typical Mark 2 capable jet fighter.

Though considering IronMan weighs less than a Jet Fighter by several tons, then he should have been able to go much faster but a human shape isn't that aerodynamic and missiles can go a lot faster than a typical jet fighter. So not so much a suprise that the missile caught up to him, but given more time IronMan could likely outrun it and travel even faster.

Anyway, for the 15 minute limit on the 3GJ Arc, means the armor was using at minimum 55 kilojoules of energy per second just for propulsion.

But how efficient are the engines? Even with plasma rocket backed engines it would be a fair amount of waste energy. Which could help account for the fact 3 GJ divided by 55 KJ per second translates to ~15 hours instead of 15 minutes, if we view the 3 GJ as total energy instead of just generated energy.

But the Reactor could also have been burning out, Jarvis did state it was never intended to power sustained flight.

Also it was used to keep Stark alive for months and whatever energy he used to power his first Armor for the escape, so could have had significantly less energy than when he initially built it.

Interesting numbers in any case, in case anyone was wondering.

[Aranor]

I do have that issue of popular science. I guess for feasability I mostly curious if people knew of current projects.

Here is the one from popular science

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man

Functional yet the batteries only last about 45 minutes.

another is the HAL 5 by Cyberdine.....Yes the same as in the terminator series.

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/index.html

which is in production and can be rented for the equivalant of $1000 per month.

Another is Bleex

http://bleex.me.berkeley.edu/bleex.htm

This one has been around a while now.

http://www.springwalker.com/

That one is just interesting.

some work on a new ceramic battery

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:EEStore

I know not the best source but I have read up on it on other sites.

The one problem with all of these is the hopes of what they can do. While the strength enhancement is definitely there the speed is not. Except perhaps the springwalker. To get the body to move faster than it already does by mechanical means is to risk shattering the bones upon stopping momentum or worse reversing. Hate to try and kick something moving my leg at 120mph only to change my mind and pull the leg back.....can someone say 37 pins for reconstruction.....just in the knee.....

To go along with yur propulsion Zeo another thing to consider is in a fighter jet the engines are designed to basically be direct flow from input to output. In the Ironman grieves I can only guess to the bends and twists the fuel and air must take before combining to combustion and finally reach exhaust. Not to mention size. Granted weight comparison between jet and armored man but the equivalant sized motor should be the size of his entire leg. Or in his case both. So i would think that little motor is putting out some serious rpm's while mainting temperature and structural integrity.

pretty amazing stuff to try and configure in ones head

[*zeo]

Ironman wasn't using jets, he was using plasma rockets based on his repulsor technology. This is why he could use the gauntlets for both thrust and as a weapon. Remember he also used the same technology for that super missile of his that could take out an entire hillside. Each projectile was propelled by the Repulsor technology.

Though in the comic he did use micro-turbines, a series of 7 of them in each boot that all combined thrust at the exhaust port at the bottom of the boot. The fuel being derived from the atmosphere with molecular sieves that extracted oxygen from the air and condensed into liquid oxygen. Scram jets provided the higher speeds and internal fuel reserves provided short space travel capability without resorting an armor specifically designed for space.

As for the mobility speed problem, if you look at the standard issue 2020 page (the one not shown on the web site) it was one of the issues they stated they were going to solve soon.

Basically they are giving the limbs natural freedom of movement and limiting power to just the actual push and pull movement and then let momentum run its course. This will allow the limbs to break the present 5-6 MPH limit.

[Aranor]

The issue with speed that I am referring to is the speed which is being imagined that these can amplify too.

How fast could one run before ones knee/elbow tendons snap or the hollows of the bone shatter from the metal exoskeleton forcing them to change direction at .03675 seconds notice?

Personally I think the idea of a powered exoskeleton to be quite appealing. especially in the non military applications like fire fighting. Hell with the jaws of life go get Bob.

[*zeo]

Hmm, well for one thing they weren't talking about giving the wearer super speed. At least not yet...

Right now they are just solving how to get the armor past 6 MPH limit by letting the limbs work more like our natural limbs.

We should also clarify what is humanly possible...

From http://www.forbes.com/2004/05/14/cx_mh_0514running.html

"A dog, an ostrich, a cheetah, they can blow us away," says Weyand. "And the materials they use to run--their bones, their muscles, their tendons--are no different than ours."

So human limitations isn't so much the limit of speed of our joints but rather how we use those same materials. The Cheetah can go close to 70 MPH for example but it's tendons are the same as ours.

It basically breaks down to how efficiently we can run and how much stress is actually channeled into our limbs and joints. A Cheetah for example spread the force of its running across its whole body with its spring like spine design.

We may not be similarly designed but the limits of the materials we are made up of are still the same and through technology there are ways to give ourselves similar design efficiency.

Like for example lets look at how the exo armors are effecting strength, it is basically amplifying the wearers strength by synching its movement with the wearer's.

So the wearer experiences just the strain of say lifting 2 pounds while the armor takes the strain of lifting 200 pounds. The stress on the user's body is thus greatly reduced.

Similarly the stresses of running could be reduced, for example reducing effort of the muscles means they won't be pulling and pushing against the bones as hard, making it easier to move faster.

The example of the cheetah shows the joints can actually move very fast, so similar speeds should be achievable by humans if we just eliminate the strain that running normally gives us, such as grinding of joints against each other to absorb impacts, etc. Which the armor could also absorb for us and further reduce the strain of running.

Add the actual mechanism of running gives us a none speed dependant way to increase our speed by simply increases the distance between each step. Since running basically involves a series of leaps. Like note the fact you have both feet off the ground while running and only take steps to continue pushing yourself forward and maintain the run.

So like a kangaroo we could put less effort into every leap and still achieve faster speeds.

Add that this all could be further enhanced with implants that can strengthen bones and synch wearers movement to the armor and vice versa, means we should be able to give speeds exceeding 30 MPH with relative ease and may even go up as high as 90 before we actually hit a human speed limit.

But then we should have gotten to the flying armor stage of technology

[Aranor]

I think i may be being misunderstood. The limits of human potential are no doubt well beyond what we achieve now. But what I am saying is to have a machine perform these for us.

Ok. Legs are encased in metal housing with some padding. Now the machine is going to force that leg to move faster than the leg itself would move. Meaning there is impact. The repetetiveness of that impact is not in the normal direction a human would recieve impact from everyday running.

Lets say you are in your car doing 20 mph. You open the door feeling like showing off so you stick your leg out the door and try to push the car. One leg. The car is going to force that leg to move faster than it normally could causing great strain. (I know this from experience.....)

Also think of it this way. Regardless of how tightly strapped in to a vehicle you are when the forward momentum is suddenly halted by any means, breaking, crash, your body slows at a lesser rate than the vehicle. Hence the need for vehicles that colapse upon impact. offering longer distance so the passenger does not force their head into the dash. So hard anyway.

As long as a machine, or any device, is forcing you to move beyond your normal limits through external (Outside of the body) means there is going to be impact between you and the armor.

[*zeo]

Well first the Car is bad example because your leg wasn't having force evenly applied to it as would be the case with an exo-skeleton.

Second I think you are ignoring the exo-skeleton, they call it a skeleton because it will support the wearer just like our own skeleton supports us and move in synch with us.

The only time you should experience impact then would be with a sudden stop.

Discussing actual limits, running would not force the limbs to move faster than they normally can unless you are running faster than human reflexes would allow but human reflexes are greater than human speed.

This is because our ability to run is limited by our muscle performance and air resistance, the exo-skeleton though would work like an extension of your muscles and thus make it easier to move your limbs and thus easier to over come wind resistance and to run faster.

It would be like if your limbs weighed nothing, so moving them would become practically effortless and that in turn would allow you to move them faster.

Take how high speed bikes perform just by adding a wind shield to reduce wind resistance for example. Same principle applies for running if you either reduce resistance or increase muscle power.

So the strain on the body will simply be one of rate of acceleration and deceleration. Cause this is the present plan to make the armor move with the wearer and not for the wearer.

However to go beyond this they can use Direct stimulation of the wearer muscles to over come the reflex limit and keep the limbs in synch with the wearer for even faster speeds.

So I don't see a problem with them reaching fairly high speeds. Though I agree bionics would be needed to reach super fast speeds.

The only concern then of yours that remains then is one from a sudden stop, which would be the natural problem with moving at high speeds.

One possible solution could be simply auto locking the armor so the force of impact is spread evenly across the entire body. The impact absorbing properties of the armor could also come into play to make such sudden stops more survivable.

For example crashing through a wall doesn't mean you come to an instant stop so you could survive by just breaking through and reducing your deceleration to survivable levels.

The predicted 2020 armor also has auto medical systems to stop bleeding, etc on the spot. So even if hurt it could keep you going until you could get proper medical care.

[Aranor]

The sudden stop I am referring to is the motion of running at high speeds. Not 30-50 mph but should one try to run upwards of 70+ or so. Breaking the human potential. The sudden stop would be in the milisecond range followed by direct reversal at the same speed as the prior motion. And the slamming of the body (Shin, feet, thighs, upper/lower arms, hands, fingers that I am referring to.

The armor is not supporting the human frame as our own skeleton does. We are simply a bag of meat within.

The best concept I can probly refer to then is a jack hammer. But rather than moving 1-5 inches up and down...strapping your hands to it and allowing it to move 1-2 feet up and down at the same speed.

Now a curious thought...why haven't they put servos on both sides of the joints? Yes more power drain but how much more thrust could they get from it? Especially knees and elbows. (Shoulders and hips are rather tricky joints)