Vibrating blades

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Seraphic
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Vibrating blades

No inappropriate jokes about vibrating knives gettin' the job done better than regular knives, pls.

I was just wondering about this technology and whether it is plausible or even true that a cutting edge that is vibrating at a high frequency would do a better job of cutting. I suppose the most common example would be a prog knife from Eva, and I've known them from other places, too.

Please, I don't mean this topic to turn into a simple list about where frequency weapons appear, but rather I would like to discuss why or why not the mechanism they proclaim to use should actually do the job as described.

Thanks. =o
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Vibrating blades

Presumably it just makes the knife more like a saw, with back-and-forth cutting motions, just on a much smaller scale. I have no idea whether this would actually work or not, but it seems about as likely as using heated edged weapons in order to melt through things as you cut. Honestly, you'd probably be better off with a blunt weapon (think mace or warhammer) than either when fighting a giant robot, but that's not nearly as heroic, so no dice in most anime.
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ORegan
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Re: Vibrating blades

You mean some like a high frequency blade like from MGS?
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: Vibrating blades

ORegan wrote:You mean some like a high frequency blade like from MGS?
I think he means something akin to the Enact's vibroblade.
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ORegan
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Re: Vibrating blades

Amadi Akintunde wrote: I think he means something akin to the Enact's vibroblade.
So basically an electric metal engraver, only in blade form?
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: Vibrating blades

Yeah, something like that.
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blind_dead_mcjones
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Re: Vibrating blades

well, the only real world equivalent i know of are those electric cutting knives that you plug into a power socket, and they do really well at slicing through bread and steak and the like, not so sure about how effective it would be at cutting armour though
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Areku
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Re: Vibrating blades

I always imagined that vibroblades served as an acceleration in cutting, that they cut through materials faster but also physically dulled or fractured more rapidly (not counting additional factors like wear and maintenance on the mechanism responsible for vibrating). I never really saw it as a case of certain heated weapons the Heat Hawk, which I'd expect to result in a half-molten glob on a stick with hot dents or craters in enemy armor.

Not that I think vibroblades would scale up to mecha size very well (at all), but that's a general trait of bladed weapons. Square-cube (or base-cube, for really sharp edges) is not kind to blades in general. I could see vibroblades working more effectively against MS than traditional or heated blades, but not even close to the *swish swish clean-cut* we normally see (and the more sparks there are, the more rapidly the blade would fail).

For anti-mech, I could see a vibro-blade get one, maybe two uses which are somewhat slow and deliberate and target weaker areas of armor (targets like joints, instruments or non-hardened weapons), but that's it. After one or two uses, you'd need a new blade, if not an entirely new weapon.
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Re: Vibrating blades

I seem to recall that Cyberpunk also has a weapon like this (nanoblade or something), which is based on the idea that the blade indeed vibrates, but not necessarily as a stabbing motion as such. I can't recall the technical spec, but it was something akin to relying less on the kinetic force of the blow and more of the blade "swimming into the target", as if pulled in by the surrounding material. The blade would separate the matter into two and sink in. There probably has to be some separate function to active and deactivate it, and how it is powered it's hard to say.

I can't say it is significantly different from the other fictional weapons mentioned already, but I concur with Areku that the stress put on such a weapon would make the blade quite fragile in prolonged use.

Of course most mecha sword tend to be more brutally kinetic, unless aided by a beam edge, and one would imagine a kinetic sword risks shattering just as well if used poorly against armor. The vibrating blade should technically be able to cut through armor due to its special properties, even if it would then have to be discarded or replaced.
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ydawg314
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Re: Vibrating blades

I was under the impression that the blade worked by using sonic frequencies to break things. It would be used kind of like how a high pitch can break glass... Adding this kind of frequency to armor would ruin it. The knife even hurt spectators's ears in the first ep...
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Amadi Akintunde
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Re: Vibrating blades

What about the Anti-Tank Daggers in FMP? Their blades have edges that act similarly to that of a chainsaw.
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Re: Vibrating blades

High frequency blade isn't something new, Guyver has them since 1985 although they aren't hand-carries type.

About it being better...quote from TV Trope.
The idea is that high-frequency vibrations in the blade allow the weapon to cut through nearly anything. Often, this results in a humming noise and the blade of the weapon visibly blurring. One variant of this trope is for the vibrations to cause the weapon to become white hot, and it's actually the heat that does the cutting.

This weapon is Awesome But Impractical. Holding a heavily vibrating item for extended periods (like a chainsaw) can cause muscle fatigue, and you could risk involuntarily dropping it. That would be bad. If this sort of danger is acknowledged in a story, there will probably some sort of Applied Phlebotinum to handwave the problem away. Sometimes it's avoided by having the wielder be a Humongous Mecha. Mechas do not get tired. Or get carpal tunnel syndrome. Probably. Alternatively, it may be that the vibration is only activated when cutting is actually being done
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blind_dead_mcjones
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Re: Vibrating blades

Amadi Akintunde wrote:What about the Anti-Tank Daggers in FMP? Their blades have edges that act similarly to that of a chainsaw.
don't you mean the monomolecular cutters? the anti tank daggers are just HEAT rounds encased inside a giant throwing knife
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Meteoid
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Re: Vibrating blades

I generally assumed that when dealing with mecha combat actually attemping to 'cut' would be very ineffective and that most blades rely more on kinetic force than actual sharpness, thus the vibroblade works like a jackhammer to repeatedly smash into the target several times a second.
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SonicSP
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Re: Vibrating blades

Meteoid wrote:I generally assumed that when dealing with mecha combat actually attemping to 'cut' would be very ineffective and that most blades rely more on kinetic force than actual sharpness, thus the vibroblade works like a jackhammer to repeatedly smash into the target several times a second.
I think so too, in Exia's case its advanced technology prowess cannot cut even the low tech Tieren High Mobility Type's armor in 00 Season 1 Ep 3 when it lacked the space to swing it for enough momentum. Of course, GN Particle blade get their sharpness amplified with GN field that is deployed on the sword, in addition to some vibration so I guess the example here goes beyond the scope the thread. Of course, later on in Anno Domini Gundam you'll have the extreme heat generation Condenser-type Blades thrown in addition with the vibration and the field that is supposedly makes it more powerful within the series.
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Re: Vibrating blades

Vibrating blades in AD seem a little more complex than simple saws. When the Enact pulls it's dagger out it creates a high pitch noise so it must be vibrating extremely fast.

In real life basically you have electric saws. They generally save a lot of energy for the user, but if that's the case I'm not entirely sure how practical it would be as weapon for a mech. Either way a machine is doing the work so then you'd have to consider whether it'd be more efficient to use that same energy that would power the weapon to just make the arm swing faster, or maybe to just give it a heated blade instead, etc.
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ydawg314
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Re: Vibrating blades

sonic blade is most like supposed weaken armor like this especially when the blade touches the armor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECNDpCYvaOc
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Stampede89
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Re: Vibrating blades

Which of course is completely pointless if the armor has been tempered to remove any sort of brittleness in it (which would be stupid if they didn't). These vibrating blades are honestly the dumbest weapons I have ever seen. You would get better results with a plasma cutter.
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Re: Vibrating blades

A lot of times however you find vehicles like tanks still have weak spots. while the armor might hold together other internal parts such as inner support structure, welds, bolts, might begin to weaken. All if this assuming the armor doesnt absorb sound
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Kuruni
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Re: Vibrating blades

Stampede89 wrote:These vibrating blades are honestly the dumbest weapons I have ever seen. You would get better results with a plasma cutter.
Yes, and you would get even better results with a anti-matter cutter! Wait, that's still far dumber than space-rifting cutter! :mrgreen:

Seriously, vibro blade are mostly used in setting where energy blade aren't available. Maybe the tech aren't advance enough, being expensive, power hunger, blah blah blah.
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