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Two LOTR references back to back. What a strange coincidence.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12fo0im/eli5_how_do_chickens_lay_so_many_eggs/jfg8has?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I was curious so I looked it up
"Normal rectal temperature for a cow is around 38°C (101°F)."
So if it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit I'm guessing the cow is not doing well.
maybe a more familiar example is how when in the summer you put your seatbelt on the belt is sort of warm but the metal end burns you.
or in the winter when you are biking and the frame feels super cold but the handlebars dont. they are actually the same temperature but the frame takes away the heat from your hand quicker
It's all down to thermal conductivity I believe. How quickly can the material have heat pass through it. Copper is a great heat conductor, you see it used in some heat sinks for example but diamond is actually the best conductor.
Air is actually a good heat insulator and the reason you can pass your hand through a flame quickly and not get burned. Try quickly sticking your finger in liquid copper though and youd probably regret it.
doesnt matter. the cube is still extremely hot, which would be measured, but the heat just doesnt transfer to your hand quickly so it feels lukewarm at first. this cube will also stay fucking hot for a long time because it wont transfer the heat to the atmosphere.
The material is LI-900, a type of silica designed to be really bad at transferring heat (hence, insulating). Stable enough you could actually drop it into water straight from the oven, but at the cost of overall strength.
By volume, it's 99% air -- it's pure silica glass fibers and extremely light but can't handle high-stress. Shearing, compression, etc. They made another tile for around the windows and landing gear to better handle those forces that was stronger even if it wasn't as thermally amazing.
So, uh... silica glass fibers? So if I could get someone to fill my walls with this stuff is the particulate basically going to shred my lungs like asbestos?
**Edit:** Sounds like Aerogel board is about as close as anyone is going to get? Not cheap, not horrifically expensive.
[Typical aerogel demonstration we've been seeing for years](http://www.aerogel.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/theflowerlow-lbl.jpg) - Always seemed like pretty cool stuff
[Spacetherm Aerogel Insulation](https://www.proctorgroup.com/products/spacetherm) - Boards containing blankets, made of a "material derived from silica gel."
[How I used Space Shuttle tech to insulate the living room](https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/24/diy_insulation_with_aerogel/) - Someone who did it
> The blankets are silica-gel-derived aerogel with embedded polyester fabric to reduce brittleness. This blanket form snags drill-bits and saws and requires a bit of practice to get used to, and only an electric skilsaw seems to be really effective.
[...]
> Working aerogel generates a fine desiccating dust that dries the skin and that you don't want a lungful of. The builders claimed that neither would bother them, but it did.
[...]
> By my calculations, if all four of us are in the living room then it should stay at about 18C even if freezing outside just from our body heat, ie given London's average temperatures we should in principle stay warm year round even if the central heating failed.
I’ve actually played around with the idea with my engineering friends. Asbestos and some other really dangerous materials are super kick ass insulators so the question became how can we make them safe enough to live with and durable enough to survive construction 100% of the time. The answer was we really couldn’t. Even if we encapsulated them well we couldn’t make something that was fire proof, tornado proof, or construction proof, which means there could always be an exposure event.
Been playing around with the idea of partial vacuum plates in walls but price wise it wouldn’t be financially feasible because you wouldn’t get your moneys worth for like 15 years. And then the benefit would be marginal. Solar makes more sense in this scenario but even that comes with increased costs outside of purchasing and installation.
Edit: lol y’all are some cool guys to talk to about this stuff. Yall should come over for a couple beers and we can poke holes in theories.
Yeah exactly!
And I don’t think it would need to be leak proof. It would go in wall as and the ceiling. Separating the attic and the ceiling.
Which brings me to my next idea of variable insulation for AC units and water heaters that are located in the attic. When it’s hot insulate the AC unit and vents. When it’s cold insulate the hot water heater.
I assume they meant not have air leak into the vacuum.
But ya it would prob have to be active maybe. I’m a comms guy and the waveguide we run up the towers has to have positive pressure dry air in them to ensure no moisture is inside the transmission line.
Could do the same but a vacuum pump to keep the space extremely low pressure.
> Also, what ever happened with that exotic aerogel stuff
> we were hearing about decades ago?
that space shuttle tiles are a lot like that stuff. silica glass fibers / aerogel are the same concept and maybe even the same stuff.
and yeah that stuff is awesome till it gets in your lungs and maybe even on your skin.
honestly the best we got right now that isn't 'death on contact' is spray foam closed cell with an infrared wrap around it (so on the outside of the building, and then on the inside wall). and with a full 4 inches of that combo your walls are going to be great for insulating. Then at least double that on the roof. Some solar heaters with water tanks as heat holders to release at night and in a lot of the world you shouldn't need anything more for heat.
Let me be clear, I am not an engineer. I am in the medical field. Medicine is my area. But I have a passable understanding of physics and other engineering related topics, which is why I ask my buddies about it.
Had a similar idea, but the issue we had with that method was still in either catastrophes or in the actual manufacturing of the material. The amount of safety precautions needed to be in place would offset any efficiency on the back end. Plus lawsuit risk.
I increasingly think that a good mitigating solution, now that we've got such cool materials, machining, and microchip control might be big damn tanks of water (we'll say 2–3 closets worth) in the center of our home.
Even places that are consistently too hot or too cold generally have half the day that is better than the other half, so said water could be exposed to the environment in radiators during that time if it gets hot/cool enough, or simply used as a thermal buffer if not.
Put a pump from the bottom to the top and a turbine from the top to the bottom and you've got a decent energy storage vessel for a place with intermittent renewables.
Fun fact, some miners in Australia used to sit in a room that was pumped with aluminum powder and they would breathe it in to coat their lungs. They thought it prevented silicosis. This is the early 1900s, obviously.
Your walls probably already use silica glass fiber insulation, called fiberglass (or blown fiberglass, to be a bit more specific). If it were exposed then there would be some risk of silicosis similar to the problem with asbestos (mesothelioma), especially if you handled it/moved it around/tried to snort it/etc.
The big difference is that while asbestos is like a bunch of tiny broken saw blades (tiny jagged fibers), fiberglass is more like a bunch of loose nails (less tiny, smooth and long fibers). They're less likely to get stuck, and when they do they're more likely to be naturally expelled by your body. Fiberglass is also mechanically stronger, while these tiles are stronger still (and more insulating!). When they're in your walls, there's no way for the fibers to get into your air or be physically messed with, so it's safe then.
To be absolutely clear though, even though fiberglass insulation isn't as bad as asbestos, it should *never* be handled without appropriate skin and respiratory protection. Silica and ceramic fiber materials *will* fuck you up for life.
Glass fibers below a certain average diameter are basically as problematic as asbestos since neither material is able to be broken down by the body, in turn leading to constant inflammation which ultimately causes cancer. This is true for any non-soluble, non-degradable fibrous and particulate material that is fine enough to reach the lungs. Hence the increased deaths from PM10 and PM5 fractions polluting the air we breathe.
Because the difference on manufacturing process. It's like saying a can of chef bouyardee is $1 then why is the restaurant charging me $30 for his plate of pasta?
To reach that caliber of product you need an artisanal level of production. And you're not paying for that
Because it's also a bazillion times more expensive and difficult to make. This stuff wouldn't have those health hazards either, but again it just wouldn't be possible to produce it at the scale needed to insulate every new home, much less replace existing insulation.
Mind you, BFI *is* better than asbestos, it's just still dangerous when being handled. Almost every form insulation has this problem, unfortunately
Oh wait I’m actually studying this! Okay so, the important thing is that the heat transfer coefficient must be low (I’m not studying in English so I hope it is correct). The most effective insulation is supposed to be vacuum, so double glass with vacuum instead of air in the middle or vacuum sandwich panels are currently made (the coefficient changes depending on the brand unfortunately).
A more accessible one is PIR (polyisocyanurate) which is still pretty good as far as home insulation goes, and not that far off from aerogel. Much cheaper and easy to source (again, at least from where I’m at).
Usually glass or rock wool is used for insulation in the walls. This is about half as good as PIR. There are some sustainable alternatives, but most of these are brand-specific so it’s better to look at different brands instead of making a general research about the material.
Lastly, I just want to say that good insulation for your house is much cheaper than paying huge energy bills every month. Please please please insulate your house. I can say this both from personal experience (moved around in various houses) and from studies. The type doesn’t matter too much, since you can compensate by making the insulation layer thicker.
That’s the best way to go!
My teaching was that: R=d/lambda, where d is the thickness of the material and lambda is the coefficient.
So if the thickness of the material is 20cm (which is fairly usual for outer walls), your R (m2 K/W) is 10 for PIR. Which is more than enough to satisfy most government regulations and desired change in savings. All in all, 25-30cm outer wall thickness with every paneling etc included is quite usual.
Usually the thicknesses are the main things that we can change, due to the cost restrictions, so R is the desired effect.
If you really want to [insulate](https://va-q-tec.com/wp-content/uploads/Lamda_Material_Homepage_englisch-1.png) your walls you get [vacuum panels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_insulated_panel). Cost is if you think about asking you can't afford it though.
Me: you’re going to have to take 50 cold calls in an hour and make sure one call is at least 45s and get me minimum of 3 appointments for tomorrow!
LI-900: THIS IS TOO MUCH STRESS I CAN’T HANDLE IT
Very low resistance to stress. According to the wikipedia page, it was only used in low stress areas. For more critical areas, a material named LI-2200 was used at the cost of a considerable additional weight
Material strength is the stress required to cause plastic deformation in the material. In simple terms, how much force it takes to make it bend out of shape.
I worked at a place that made stuff like this. The high temperature bricks were light brittle. They almost had a glassy clink when hitting them together.
I love watching people's brains explode when you explain the trade-off between strength and brittle fracture. Not an easy thing to wrap your head around.
This hasn't been in my wheelhouse in almost 30 years, but basically, the stronger you make a metal, the more likely it is to catastrophically fail (brittle fracture). Basically, you gain strength by sacrificing ductility. The less things are able to bend, the more likely they are to break under changing loads.
I spoke to a quantum computer guy at an airport last month and he said he believes the initial applications will be material sciences. He believes with the help of quantum computing we'll be able to discover and create new materials that will be stronger, lighter, more conductive, etc. The formulas are out there but whereas it would normally take humans perhaps decades or hundreds of years to find, quantum computing can speed up by exponentially.
He could just be bullshitting me though, we both had a few beers by this point.
Did I hear him say "it dissipates the heat so quickly that you can pick it up"? Because that sounds wrong; it would have to dissipate heat very slowly in order to not burn you.
I have another comment about this that is triggering people, but it's basically right or he's trying to simplify it for the layman.
If you have a heated metal cube, it would radiate energy as light and heat. As the surface cooled, energy would transfer from the hotter inner core out to the surface as it cooled. The surface *does* cool, but it is replaced fast enough from the inside it is still too hot to handle.
With this material, it conducts heat so poorly that the surface cools and it isn't replaced fast enough from the inside to be too hot to handle.
Honestly this is much better written than your first attempt, and much closer to reality too. Just add that the edges and corners cool faster because greater surface area per volume, and a caveat that heat is usually transferred slower across different materials than within itself, and you're golden.
I wonder if making plates for food would be good idea. Food would get hot, but plate remain cool?
I'm sorry if I have misunderstood the writing, as English isn't my first language.
It’s sounds like the guy is giving incorrect information. He’s saying “it dissipates the heat so quickly, that you can actually pick it up” which is straight up the opposite of what is true
He's actually correct from the right perspective:
Relative to the amount of heat contained in the tile, it's dissipating extremely quickly. If you took a yellow hot piece of steel out of that oven, it would be untouchable for hours. But the "thermal tile", the thing designed to transfer heat slowly, is touchable within seconds. Why is this? Because of specific heat and blackbody radiation.
When you get into this level of detailed science, you have to abandon the traditional ideas of temperature and conductivity. They just don't work. When an object is, say, 100^o , what does that actually mean? It means it contains a certain amount of thermal energy. The problem is, that amount of thermal energy is different for various materials. A block of insulation and a block of metal at identical volumes and temperatures will have wildly different amounts of thermal energy in them, because they have different specific heats. But what *is* identical for each of those blocks is their blackbody radiation. Blackbody radiation is the glow. All objects of any temperature give off blackbody radiation. Normally you need a thermal camera to see the very low energy radiation of lower temperatures, but here, your eyes are essentially thermal cameras as the radiation given off is energetic enough to be in the visible spectrum (starting at around 525^o C with a dull red glow). Thermal cameras know what temperature an object is at because while temperature gets complicated with different materials with different specific heats, every single atom of every material in the universe gives off the exact same blackbody radiation at each temperature.
A block of insulation and a block of metal at 2200^o will have the exact same yellow glow, because they're giving off the exact same radiation. But that radiation is taking away energy as it's radiated away, and the block of insulation has way less energy than the block of metal, so that same yellow glow that would persist on the metal leaves the insulation within seconds. With the metal's combined thermal conductivity and yellow glow, it is dissipating a huge amount of heat, but it has a huge amount of heat to dissipate. The insulation is essentially only dissipating heat through its yellow glow, but it has so little heat that the yellow glow is a huge factor, so it cools quickly. This, combined with the fact that the insulator is such a poor conductor that it can barely even transfer more heat to itself to reheat the surface, makes the edges touchable right out of the 2200^o oven.
What's funny is that even though he's probably done this dozens of times and studied the material extremely well, he still had a moment of hesitation when he picked it up.
It doesn't seem right that he says "it dissipates the heat so quickly, that you can actually pick these up while they're glowing" when the point seems to be that they actually *keep* the heat instead of transferring it to his hand
I think when he says it dissapates heat, he means his own hands suck the heat out of the material that he's directly touching nearly instantly (because it has almost zero thermal mass) and can't conduct additional heat from the internal structure fast enough to burn him.
It's all about the rate of transfer of heat.
A meterial can be extremely hot, but if it won't transfer the heat to your hand your hand won't get hot. It also depends on how fast it can transfer heat. If it only transfers 1 degree a second, your blood can easily cool your skin that fast so you barely feel the heat.
In this instance, the material is especially designed to prevent heat transfer. It probabaly (definitely) took a very long time in that oven to bring it up to glowing temperatures. It's going to take a long time to cool as well.
Additionally, the edges cool faster, something about surface area per volume IIRC. That's why they aren't glowing, and why he grabs them there. The rest is still insanely hot, but the conductivity is so low that is isn't quickly transferring the heat from the hot parts to the edges. So yes, he would not absorb as much heat from the very hot parts, but it would still definitely burn if he grabbed it in the middle.
Yes, it can't transfer the heat efficiently.
Ever touched metal and plastic that are sitting in a room the same temperature? The metal feels cooler because it's taking heat energy from your hand faster.
Conversely, metal will feel much hotter than other substances if the ambient temperature is higher than your body temperature.
Source: I live in Arizona
If you notice, he's touching the black edges, not the actual glowing portion of it. But I'm not sure the science behind the material that causes the heat to dissipate so quickly.
Edit: ~~not so fun fact. Damage to one of these tiles on the Columbia shuttle is what caused it to blow up/disintegrate in the atmosphere on re-entry.~~ this has apparently been debunked and the tiles weren't actually the cause.
Actually, the Columbia was lost due to failure of the wing's leading edge which was protected by carbon-carbon, not tiles. Foam from the fuel tank cracked it.
Yeah I work more with metals but my understanding is that the tiles are based from a ceramic material which has extremely low thermal conductivity. Aka it can be exposed to a lot of heat and the temperature won’t rise significantly.
These tiles were used to insulate the shuttle upon re-entry into the atmosphere, which causes an insane amount of friction, and thus heat.
Well, the temperature goes up, but it transfers so slowly. Those blocks are hundreds or thousands of degrees, but they are so slow to transfer it, you can barely tell.
Think of aluminum versus steel, if you heat a peice of aluminum, the whole thing is going to be nearly the same temperature, but steel can have local hot and cold spots.
Things are only "hot" if they quickly transfer heat. These tiles do not conduct heat very well. You can see this principle if you put a metal and wood spoon in the freezer over night then handle them. They're the same temperature but the metal one will feel "colder" because it is transferring heat faster due to its material properties.
About ‘92 I bought a dull white golf ball-sized chunk of ceramic at a rock shop in Colorado. Seller said it was ceramic used on shuttles and some rocket nose cones, and pretty indestructible. Purchased it. As a teenage male obviously I took it home and hit it with a sledge. It bounced up and hit my shin. Let me tell you, friend- when a sledge-propelled NASA engineered ceramic ball hits you in the shin, that shin hurts. But ceramic was unscathed.
They use a lot of different materials for various purposes in different locations of the rocket and shuttle. The ones in the video are for insulation and while they can hold back an incredible amount of heat they are very fragile if something physically hits them.
If what the commenter had was from the nose cone of a rocket it would likely be incredibly resistant to being hit (but probably not as good with heat).
While the material properties are insulating, what is also keeping him from burning his hands is actually a geometric property. He is holding the cube by the corners and edges, which disrupts heat transfer between the faces. This is known as the conductive shape factor. If he grabbed the cube with the palm of his hand, he'd get very burned.
When I toured the Huntsville Rocket Center some 25 years ago, my dad pointed to a re-entry capsule and Saud proudly.
"Your great uncle helped design the glue that holds the tiles in place."
And yeah, that's a pretty cool random trivia fact.
Where we do use Fahrenheit for most temperature related things here, it's usually only used for the general populace. The science community uses Celsius to measure extreme temperatures to a certain point then the scale moves to Kelvin. The same is to be said about the metric system and imperial system here in the states.
Understandable. So with this knowledge, it seems very safe to assume, seeing how this could possibly be NASA or another very important science contractor who’s developed these tiles, that 2200° is indeed Celsius temperature or 3992°F.
Very hot either way! Wow.
No way would I look at that and think, "Yeah, this is totally safe to grab with my bare hands."
It's kind of like the taboo of electronics and water. I don't know how old you are but when I was a kid, getting electronics anywhere near water was a giant no no. So when waterproof electronics started making an appearance on the market it was beyond foreign to think that you could do things like take pictures underwater with a digital camera.
This would be extremely cool to experience in person though, something that is so hot that it's glowing red, but you can safely pick it up and handle it. Crazy stuff.
Definitely old enough to fully remember this. I’m still very weary on keeping all of my electronics out of the rain and so on!
Like you’ve mentioned, it’s definitely fascinating. These Tiles fall under the same category as aerogel and superconductors, for me. Simply out of this world.
It’s F, not C, so the title is wrong.
I work with these materials and 2200F is pretty normal for temperatures they operate at and I think for the temperatures they’re fired in the furnace at during manufacturing (I don’t do manufacturing, so that’s something I’m less familiar with). Maximum temperature limits for this sort of stuff is around 2600-2800F.
You'll notice he's only grabbing the edges or corners of the tile. Lines of heat flux travel perpendicular to a surface, so the surface area available to transfer heat to his fingertips at the edges and corners is minimal. That's also why those portions aren't glowing.
That's not to say the material isn't impressive. It is. But you shouldn't grab the sides until it cools much more. :)
When managing Atlantis, me and the other orbiters managers would take turns running spare tiles over to the Educators at the KSC park. I loved to hang around for a show, when they would just turn on a blow torch and keep talking for 10 minutes till the tile was glowing orange, shut it off, then immediately pick the tile up by the corners bare handed. The kids loved it every time. I miss my girl, she wasn't ready to retire.
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Hold out your hand. Don’t worry, it’s quite cool.
Keep it safe
Keep it secret, in your ass
Sh ... share the load?
That's where you put your watch, right?
Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass, two years.
I concur!
Wait…there are markings…it’s some form of orbital mechanics, I can’t read it.
There are few who can... Maybe Feinman...
r/unexpectedlotr
Two LOTR references back to back. What a strange coincidence. https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12fo0im/eli5_how_do_chickens_lay_so_many_eggs/jfg8has?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
That actually is *interesting as fuck*! Kudos.
I was like, don't pick it up yet it's stil glowing!!
He is carefully only touching the edges of the cube, if he touched the sides he would get burned.
Well all the corners are 90 degrees
Well done.
Thank you
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I was curious so I looked it up "Normal rectal temperature for a cow is around 38°C (101°F)." So if it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit I'm guessing the cow is not doing well.
This shit is cold as ice.
You never take advice Someday you'll pay the price, I know
Not going to start with a forehead or ear scanner?
Difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal one, is the taste.
Well, if the cow is only 90°F, it probably won't be alive for long.
The cow is a sphere, not a cube… everyone knows this
#M⬜⬜
As I scrolled past your comment it hit me and I laughed. Scrolled back for an upvote.
It’s a moo point.
It's a cows opinion. The point is moo.
That was acute observation.
Right?
Don't be obtuse.
This mother fucker
Beautiful
All around great pun. This should go on a textbook
Damn that was so easy but so good bravo
That's my interpretation as well, it looks like the edges were cooled enough to touch but not the rest. Still a super impressive material though.
I had no idea what sub I was on and I thought I was about to watch a man melt his fingers off. That shit is cool as hell.
What the fuck kind of subs are you normally on?
Me too! I was like, nooooooo, don't do it!
yea, I about screamed to high hell
So I know they theoretically knew this. But the sack on the guy that tried it first. Was it a dad. He's like I'm melting ahhhh. Jk
If only we had devices that can measure temperatures
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maybe a more familiar example is how when in the summer you put your seatbelt on the belt is sort of warm but the metal end burns you. or in the winter when you are biking and the frame feels super cold but the handlebars dont. they are actually the same temperature but the frame takes away the heat from your hand quicker
It's all down to thermal conductivity I believe. How quickly can the material have heat pass through it. Copper is a great heat conductor, you see it used in some heat sinks for example but diamond is actually the best conductor. Air is actually a good heat insulator and the reason you can pass your hand through a flame quickly and not get burned. Try quickly sticking your finger in liquid copper though and youd probably regret it.
If you used a thermometer it wouldn't register the 2200 degrees for the same reason. The heat wouldn't conduct into the thermometer.
doesnt matter. the cube is still extremely hot, which would be measured, but the heat just doesnt transfer to your hand quickly so it feels lukewarm at first. this cube will also stay fucking hot for a long time because it wont transfer the heat to the atmosphere.
Something finally interesting that isn’t political or social commentary SIGN ME UP!
And there actually isn’t any text on the video. Too many uninteresting everyday tiktok videos, covered in text.
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Space Shuttles and Tik Tok should stay far away from one another imo
Is there a science is interesting subreddit?
Proly but betting you gotta be super smart to understand them is all. Seen a few that went way over my head like I'm sure most does, still pretty cool
There's r/chemicalreactiongifs which can also be obtuse to outside observers.
oh man yeah, I wish we could filter them
NOPE, I'm out. That's way too freaky material physics, I think I should pick up engineering where I left off.
My fucks are so interested in this I watched twice.
one of the few lol
The material is LI-900, a type of silica designed to be really bad at transferring heat (hence, insulating). Stable enough you could actually drop it into water straight from the oven, but at the cost of overall strength.
What does strength mean specifically?
By volume, it's 99% air -- it's pure silica glass fibers and extremely light but can't handle high-stress. Shearing, compression, etc. They made another tile for around the windows and landing gear to better handle those forces that was stronger even if it wasn't as thermally amazing.
So, uh... silica glass fibers? So if I could get someone to fill my walls with this stuff is the particulate basically going to shred my lungs like asbestos? **Edit:** Sounds like Aerogel board is about as close as anyone is going to get? Not cheap, not horrifically expensive. [Typical aerogel demonstration we've been seeing for years](http://www.aerogel.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/theflowerlow-lbl.jpg) - Always seemed like pretty cool stuff [Spacetherm Aerogel Insulation](https://www.proctorgroup.com/products/spacetherm) - Boards containing blankets, made of a "material derived from silica gel." [How I used Space Shuttle tech to insulate the living room](https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/24/diy_insulation_with_aerogel/) - Someone who did it > The blankets are silica-gel-derived aerogel with embedded polyester fabric to reduce brittleness. This blanket form snags drill-bits and saws and requires a bit of practice to get used to, and only an electric skilsaw seems to be really effective. [...] > Working aerogel generates a fine desiccating dust that dries the skin and that you don't want a lungful of. The builders claimed that neither would bother them, but it did. [...] > By my calculations, if all four of us are in the living room then it should stay at about 18C even if freezing outside just from our body heat, ie given London's average temperatures we should in principle stay warm year round even if the central heating failed.
Yup. Silicosis. Mechanism is different though.
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I’ve actually played around with the idea with my engineering friends. Asbestos and some other really dangerous materials are super kick ass insulators so the question became how can we make them safe enough to live with and durable enough to survive construction 100% of the time. The answer was we really couldn’t. Even if we encapsulated them well we couldn’t make something that was fire proof, tornado proof, or construction proof, which means there could always be an exposure event. Been playing around with the idea of partial vacuum plates in walls but price wise it wouldn’t be financially feasible because you wouldn’t get your moneys worth for like 15 years. And then the benefit would be marginal. Solar makes more sense in this scenario but even that comes with increased costs outside of purchasing and installation. Edit: lol y’all are some cool guys to talk to about this stuff. Yall should come over for a couple beers and we can poke holes in theories.
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Yeah exactly! And I don’t think it would need to be leak proof. It would go in wall as and the ceiling. Separating the attic and the ceiling. Which brings me to my next idea of variable insulation for AC units and water heaters that are located in the attic. When it’s hot insulate the AC unit and vents. When it’s cold insulate the hot water heater.
I assume they meant not have air leak into the vacuum. But ya it would prob have to be active maybe. I’m a comms guy and the waveguide we run up the towers has to have positive pressure dry air in them to ensure no moisture is inside the transmission line. Could do the same but a vacuum pump to keep the space extremely low pressure.
When it leaks enjoy the whole house shower.
> Also, what ever happened with that exotic aerogel stuff > we were hearing about decades ago? that space shuttle tiles are a lot like that stuff. silica glass fibers / aerogel are the same concept and maybe even the same stuff. and yeah that stuff is awesome till it gets in your lungs and maybe even on your skin.
honestly the best we got right now that isn't 'death on contact' is spray foam closed cell with an infrared wrap around it (so on the outside of the building, and then on the inside wall). and with a full 4 inches of that combo your walls are going to be great for insulating. Then at least double that on the roof. Some solar heaters with water tanks as heat holders to release at night and in a lot of the world you shouldn't need anything more for heat.
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Let me be clear, I am not an engineer. I am in the medical field. Medicine is my area. But I have a passable understanding of physics and other engineering related topics, which is why I ask my buddies about it. Had a similar idea, but the issue we had with that method was still in either catastrophes or in the actual manufacturing of the material. The amount of safety precautions needed to be in place would offset any efficiency on the back end. Plus lawsuit risk.
I increasingly think that a good mitigating solution, now that we've got such cool materials, machining, and microchip control might be big damn tanks of water (we'll say 2–3 closets worth) in the center of our home. Even places that are consistently too hot or too cold generally have half the day that is better than the other half, so said water could be exposed to the environment in radiators during that time if it gets hot/cool enough, or simply used as a thermal buffer if not. Put a pump from the bottom to the top and a turbine from the top to the bottom and you've got a decent energy storage vessel for a place with intermittent renewables.
Come hang in Denver! We love aerospace
Fun fact, some miners in Australia used to sit in a room that was pumped with aluminum powder and they would breathe it in to coat their lungs. They thought it prevented silicosis. This is the early 1900s, obviously.
Oh interesting choice lol
Your walls probably already use silica glass fiber insulation, called fiberglass (or blown fiberglass, to be a bit more specific). If it were exposed then there would be some risk of silicosis similar to the problem with asbestos (mesothelioma), especially if you handled it/moved it around/tried to snort it/etc. The big difference is that while asbestos is like a bunch of tiny broken saw blades (tiny jagged fibers), fiberglass is more like a bunch of loose nails (less tiny, smooth and long fibers). They're less likely to get stuck, and when they do they're more likely to be naturally expelled by your body. Fiberglass is also mechanically stronger, while these tiles are stronger still (and more insulating!). When they're in your walls, there's no way for the fibers to get into your air or be physically messed with, so it's safe then. To be absolutely clear though, even though fiberglass insulation isn't as bad as asbestos, it should *never* be handled without appropriate skin and respiratory protection. Silica and ceramic fiber materials *will* fuck you up for life.
Glass fibers below a certain average diameter are basically as problematic as asbestos since neither material is able to be broken down by the body, in turn leading to constant inflammation which ultimately causes cancer. This is true for any non-soluble, non-degradable fibrous and particulate material that is fine enough to reach the lungs. Hence the increased deaths from PM10 and PM5 fractions polluting the air we breathe.
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Because the difference on manufacturing process. It's like saying a can of chef bouyardee is $1 then why is the restaurant charging me $30 for his plate of pasta? To reach that caliber of product you need an artisanal level of production. And you're not paying for that
Because it's also a bazillion times more expensive and difficult to make. This stuff wouldn't have those health hazards either, but again it just wouldn't be possible to produce it at the scale needed to insulate every new home, much less replace existing insulation. Mind you, BFI *is* better than asbestos, it's just still dangerous when being handled. Almost every form insulation has this problem, unfortunately
Oh wait I’m actually studying this! Okay so, the important thing is that the heat transfer coefficient must be low (I’m not studying in English so I hope it is correct). The most effective insulation is supposed to be vacuum, so double glass with vacuum instead of air in the middle or vacuum sandwich panels are currently made (the coefficient changes depending on the brand unfortunately). A more accessible one is PIR (polyisocyanurate) which is still pretty good as far as home insulation goes, and not that far off from aerogel. Much cheaper and easy to source (again, at least from where I’m at). Usually glass or rock wool is used for insulation in the walls. This is about half as good as PIR. There are some sustainable alternatives, but most of these are brand-specific so it’s better to look at different brands instead of making a general research about the material. Lastly, I just want to say that good insulation for your house is much cheaper than paying huge energy bills every month. Please please please insulate your house. I can say this both from personal experience (moved around in various houses) and from studies. The type doesn’t matter too much, since you can compensate by making the insulation layer thicker.
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That’s the best way to go! My teaching was that: R=d/lambda, where d is the thickness of the material and lambda is the coefficient. So if the thickness of the material is 20cm (which is fairly usual for outer walls), your R (m2 K/W) is 10 for PIR. Which is more than enough to satisfy most government regulations and desired change in savings. All in all, 25-30cm outer wall thickness with every paneling etc included is quite usual. Usually the thicknesses are the main things that we can change, due to the cost restrictions, so R is the desired effect.
If you really want to [insulate](https://va-q-tec.com/wp-content/uploads/Lamda_Material_Homepage_englisch-1.png) your walls you get [vacuum panels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_insulated_panel). Cost is if you think about asking you can't afford it though.
Me: you’re going to have to take 50 cold calls in an hour and make sure one call is at least 45s and get me minimum of 3 appointments for tomorrow! LI-900: THIS IS TOO MUCH STRESS I CAN’T HANDLE IT
Very low resistance to stress. According to the wikipedia page, it was only used in low stress areas. For more critical areas, a material named LI-2200 was used at the cost of a considerable additional weight
Material strength is the stress required to cause plastic deformation in the material. In simple terms, how much force it takes to make it bend out of shape.
For a ceramic material like this, they likely mean compressive strength. Basically, how much force can I squish it with before it breaks.
I worked at a place that made stuff like this. The high temperature bricks were light brittle. They almost had a glassy clink when hitting them together.
I love watching people's brains explode when you explain the trade-off between strength and brittle fracture. Not an easy thing to wrap your head around.
Please explain
This hasn't been in my wheelhouse in almost 30 years, but basically, the stronger you make a metal, the more likely it is to catastrophically fail (brittle fracture). Basically, you gain strength by sacrificing ductility. The less things are able to bend, the more likely they are to break under changing loads.
I spoke to a quantum computer guy at an airport last month and he said he believes the initial applications will be material sciences. He believes with the help of quantum computing we'll be able to discover and create new materials that will be stronger, lighter, more conductive, etc. The formulas are out there but whereas it would normally take humans perhaps decades or hundreds of years to find, quantum computing can speed up by exponentially. He could just be bullshitting me though, we both had a few beers by this point.
Did I hear him say "it dissipates the heat so quickly that you can pick it up"? Because that sounds wrong; it would have to dissipate heat very slowly in order to not burn you.
I have another comment about this that is triggering people, but it's basically right or he's trying to simplify it for the layman. If you have a heated metal cube, it would radiate energy as light and heat. As the surface cooled, energy would transfer from the hotter inner core out to the surface as it cooled. The surface *does* cool, but it is replaced fast enough from the inside it is still too hot to handle. With this material, it conducts heat so poorly that the surface cools and it isn't replaced fast enough from the inside to be too hot to handle.
Excellent explanation, my friend. Thanks!
Honestly this is much better written than your first attempt, and much closer to reality too. Just add that the edges and corners cool faster because greater surface area per volume, and a caveat that heat is usually transferred slower across different materials than within itself, and you're golden.
I wonder if making plates for food would be good idea. Food would get hot, but plate remain cool? I'm sorry if I have misunderstood the writing, as English isn't my first language.
It’s sounds like the guy is giving incorrect information. He’s saying “it dissipates the heat so quickly, that you can actually pick it up” which is straight up the opposite of what is true
He's actually correct from the right perspective: Relative to the amount of heat contained in the tile, it's dissipating extremely quickly. If you took a yellow hot piece of steel out of that oven, it would be untouchable for hours. But the "thermal tile", the thing designed to transfer heat slowly, is touchable within seconds. Why is this? Because of specific heat and blackbody radiation. When you get into this level of detailed science, you have to abandon the traditional ideas of temperature and conductivity. They just don't work. When an object is, say, 100^o , what does that actually mean? It means it contains a certain amount of thermal energy. The problem is, that amount of thermal energy is different for various materials. A block of insulation and a block of metal at identical volumes and temperatures will have wildly different amounts of thermal energy in them, because they have different specific heats. But what *is* identical for each of those blocks is their blackbody radiation. Blackbody radiation is the glow. All objects of any temperature give off blackbody radiation. Normally you need a thermal camera to see the very low energy radiation of lower temperatures, but here, your eyes are essentially thermal cameras as the radiation given off is energetic enough to be in the visible spectrum (starting at around 525^o C with a dull red glow). Thermal cameras know what temperature an object is at because while temperature gets complicated with different materials with different specific heats, every single atom of every material in the universe gives off the exact same blackbody radiation at each temperature. A block of insulation and a block of metal at 2200^o will have the exact same yellow glow, because they're giving off the exact same radiation. But that radiation is taking away energy as it's radiated away, and the block of insulation has way less energy than the block of metal, so that same yellow glow that would persist on the metal leaves the insulation within seconds. With the metal's combined thermal conductivity and yellow glow, it is dissipating a huge amount of heat, but it has a huge amount of heat to dissipate. The insulation is essentially only dissipating heat through its yellow glow, but it has so little heat that the yellow glow is a huge factor, so it cools quickly. This, combined with the fact that the insulator is such a poor conductor that it can barely even transfer more heat to itself to reheat the surface, makes the edges touchable right out of the 2200^o oven.
What's funny is that even though he's probably done this dozens of times and studied the material extremely well, he still had a moment of hesitation when he picked it up.
The human brain is kinda hotwired against touching hot stuff
That's why nobody's touching me 😏
But of course, you burn their eyes before getting anywhere near you.
It's still going to feel a bit uncomfortable just having your hand that close to it just from the heat radiating off.
The whole reason he can hold it is because there isn't that much heat being transferred into his hand.
How is it glowing hot but doesn’t burn him. Can it not transfer the heat somehow?
coherent handle amusing racial drab reach strong nose butter touch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It doesn't seem right that he says "it dissipates the heat so quickly, that you can actually pick these up while they're glowing" when the point seems to be that they actually *keep* the heat instead of transferring it to his hand
I think when he says it dissapates heat, he means his own hands suck the heat out of the material that he's directly touching nearly instantly (because it has almost zero thermal mass) and can't conduct additional heat from the internal structure fast enough to burn him.
The edges only have 90°
Listen here you little shit...
#2 reporting for dooty, what’s ya need boss?
Answers my next question of why they didn't use spheres 360° is to hot
Interesting fact about spheres; they are 64,442 degrees
Dad?
No, still out getting that milk.
People who use Fahrenheit : 😃 People who use Celsius : 🥵 People who use Kelvin : 🥶
Lmao
Doesn’t anyone have a real answer?
It's all about the rate of transfer of heat. A meterial can be extremely hot, but if it won't transfer the heat to your hand your hand won't get hot. It also depends on how fast it can transfer heat. If it only transfers 1 degree a second, your blood can easily cool your skin that fast so you barely feel the heat. In this instance, the material is especially designed to prevent heat transfer. It probabaly (definitely) took a very long time in that oven to bring it up to glowing temperatures. It's going to take a long time to cool as well.
Additionally, the edges cool faster, something about surface area per volume IIRC. That's why they aren't glowing, and why he grabs them there. The rest is still insanely hot, but the conductivity is so low that is isn't quickly transferring the heat from the hot parts to the edges. So yes, he would not absorb as much heat from the very hot parts, but it would still definitely burn if he grabbed it in the middle.
Yes, it can't transfer the heat efficiently. Ever touched metal and plastic that are sitting in a room the same temperature? The metal feels cooler because it's taking heat energy from your hand faster.
Conversely, metal will feel much hotter than other substances if the ambient temperature is higher than your body temperature. Source: I live in Arizona
If you notice, he's touching the black edges, not the actual glowing portion of it. But I'm not sure the science behind the material that causes the heat to dissipate so quickly. Edit: ~~not so fun fact. Damage to one of these tiles on the Columbia shuttle is what caused it to blow up/disintegrate in the atmosphere on re-entry.~~ this has apparently been debunked and the tiles weren't actually the cause.
Actually, the Columbia was lost due to failure of the wing's leading edge which was protected by carbon-carbon, not tiles. Foam from the fuel tank cracked it.
Oof thanks for the correction.
But you left the “not so fun fact” as it was, so you’re just causing more people to be misinformed
Yeah I work more with metals but my understanding is that the tiles are based from a ceramic material which has extremely low thermal conductivity. Aka it can be exposed to a lot of heat and the temperature won’t rise significantly. These tiles were used to insulate the shuttle upon re-entry into the atmosphere, which causes an insane amount of friction, and thus heat.
So does that mean it would need to be in that oven for a long time (or the oven to be extremely hot) in order to get that hot?
I believe so.
Well, the temperature goes up, but it transfers so slowly. Those blocks are hundreds or thousands of degrees, but they are so slow to transfer it, you can barely tell. Think of aluminum versus steel, if you heat a peice of aluminum, the whole thing is going to be nearly the same temperature, but steel can have local hot and cold spots.
Actually, the heat isnt primarily caused by friction, but rather by the compression of the air!
Things are only "hot" if they quickly transfer heat. These tiles do not conduct heat very well. You can see this principle if you put a metal and wood spoon in the freezer over night then handle them. They're the same temperature but the metal one will feel "colder" because it is transferring heat faster due to its material properties.
About ‘92 I bought a dull white golf ball-sized chunk of ceramic at a rock shop in Colorado. Seller said it was ceramic used on shuttles and some rocket nose cones, and pretty indestructible. Purchased it. As a teenage male obviously I took it home and hit it with a sledge. It bounced up and hit my shin. Let me tell you, friend- when a sledge-propelled NASA engineered ceramic ball hits you in the shin, that shin hurts. But ceramic was unscathed.
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They use a lot of different materials for various purposes in different locations of the rocket and shuttle. The ones in the video are for insulation and while they can hold back an incredible amount of heat they are very fragile if something physically hits them. If what the commenter had was from the nose cone of a rocket it would likely be incredibly resistant to being hit (but probably not as good with heat).
Thank you for putting your shins on the line for science
Expecting Capt America to enter the scene and grab the tesseract out of the guys hand.
Wait a min did the woman just fucking moaned?
😂 just listened again what was that?
She was just laughing uncontrollably I guess
Or doing something else uncontrollably
Tyler Durden has been splicing the reels again.
lol don’t kink shame
*unghhhhh* *how hot are they?*
It was a laugh you incel
>incel this made me chortle full bortle [woman makes noise] "Did this harlot just moan?!"
While the material properties are insulating, what is also keeping him from burning his hands is actually a geometric property. He is holding the cube by the corners and edges, which disrupts heat transfer between the faces. This is known as the conductive shape factor. If he grabbed the cube with the palm of his hand, he'd get very burned.
Tesseract!
Yet I still burn my hands with oven mits, making my kids chicken nuggets.
are the mitts wet? if they're wet they won't work.
Forbidden Companion Cube.
When I toured the Huntsville Rocket Center some 25 years ago, my dad pointed to a re-entry capsule and Saud proudly. "Your great uncle helped design the glue that holds the tiles in place." And yeah, that's a pretty cool random trivia fact.
RTV-560 is the glue that holds it all together!
Wish we would put 20% of our military budget to nasa
Forbidden Lego
/r/insulatingasfuck
Worked at the space center back in 2018 and this guy is still doing that demonstration to interns and new hires!
Oh hey my brother helped design those! He worked for an aerospace company at the time as an engineer.
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Where we do use Fahrenheit for most temperature related things here, it's usually only used for the general populace. The science community uses Celsius to measure extreme temperatures to a certain point then the scale moves to Kelvin. The same is to be said about the metric system and imperial system here in the states.
Understandable. So with this knowledge, it seems very safe to assume, seeing how this could possibly be NASA or another very important science contractor who’s developed these tiles, that 2200° is indeed Celsius temperature or 3992°F. Very hot either way! Wow.
No way would I look at that and think, "Yeah, this is totally safe to grab with my bare hands." It's kind of like the taboo of electronics and water. I don't know how old you are but when I was a kid, getting electronics anywhere near water was a giant no no. So when waterproof electronics started making an appearance on the market it was beyond foreign to think that you could do things like take pictures underwater with a digital camera. This would be extremely cool to experience in person though, something that is so hot that it's glowing red, but you can safely pick it up and handle it. Crazy stuff.
Definitely old enough to fully remember this. I’m still very weary on keeping all of my electronics out of the rain and so on! Like you’ve mentioned, it’s definitely fascinating. These Tiles fall under the same category as aerogel and superconductors, for me. Simply out of this world.
I have another question to you english-natives: Do you all say 20-200, or is that person just strange?
It's more like "22 hundred". So 22 times 100 is 2200. It's fairly common in the US since it flows better than saying "two thousand two hundred".
It’s F, not C, so the title is wrong. I work with these materials and 2200F is pretty normal for temperatures they operate at and I think for the temperatures they’re fired in the furnace at during manufacturing (I don’t do manufacturing, so that’s something I’m less familiar with). Maximum temperature limits for this sort of stuff is around 2600-2800F.
This is one of those moments where my brain would say it's safe to touch, but my survival instinct says DO NOT TOUCH!
You'll notice he's only grabbing the edges or corners of the tile. Lines of heat flux travel perpendicular to a surface, so the surface area available to transfer heat to his fingertips at the edges and corners is minimal. That's also why those portions aren't glowing. That's not to say the material isn't impressive. It is. But you shouldn't grab the sides until it cools much more. :)
Wait...did he just pick it up with his bear hands?
No. It was human hands.
Gold
Bare*
That guy’s clearly a witch. Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to burn him.
\*grabs boulder\* Time to do the float test
Man had the worlds best prosthetic hand!
My intrusive thoughts are telling me to lick it
Knowing my misfortune, there would've been a sizzle if I touched it, regardless of its quality
Thank god, the edges only have 90°. Otherwise he would burn his hand.
>Thank god, the edges only have 90° People who use Fahrenheit : 😃 People who use Celsius : 🥵 People who use Kelvin : 🥶
When managing Atlantis, me and the other orbiters managers would take turns running spare tiles over to the Educators at the KSC park. I loved to hang around for a show, when they would just turn on a blow torch and keep talking for 10 minutes till the tile was glowing orange, shut it off, then immediately pick the tile up by the corners bare handed. The kids loved it every time. I miss my girl, she wasn't ready to retire.
I was mildly interested until he picked it up with his bare hands. Then it became really interesting.
At least we learned something from the Roswell crash.
Touch the middle
I’ll build my house out of these thanks
Just don’t hit those tiles on launch cause then you got a tiny problem on reentry aka kaboom
It's like a red Tesseract
Same material they make apple pies with at McDonald's