A coating (spray, paint) that repels water and oils (water, apple sauce, chocolate syrup, motor oil, etc.). This stuff is different from water PROOFING in that it REPELS water. You pour water on it, the water bounces back and hits you in the eye (slight exaggeration). Ice can't stick to it. Just the thing for coating power lines in freezing temperatures.
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HeyBub wrote the following:
I wonder if this could replace RainX for windshields?
willshak wrote the following:
Replying to myself... Yes it could.
Great, paint your boat with it and it'll never sink.
m
I'll bet it would make boats faster!
Think torpedoes. The Russians developed a super fast torpedo that covered itself with a layer of bubbles and it cut the drag way down so the torpedo was very fast. I'll bet The Navy is already experimenting with the compound or has been for some time. ^_^
When the next big naval war breaks out and everyone starts shooting off various super-cavitating torpedoes it's going to turn the page on decades of naval warfare tactics. They're cheap enough to build in huge numbers - enough to overcome most countermeasures because they're on target so quickly. I don't think coatings would help them - they ride inside a shock wave. The idea is to minimize the amount of wetted surface on the body by enclosing it in a low-density gas bubble so there's no real contact between torpedo and water.
The Navy's biggest underwater concern is noise not waterproofing . Apparently with their new shrouded water jet propellers, submarine technology has really made progress. So much so that the HMS Vanguard and French Triomphant submarine collided in the Atlantic Ocean a few years ago. Modern US subs are also covered in a special anechoic "skin" to reduce their sonar signature that might not take well to waterproofing. A more "pressing" issue with modern subs is all the wiring that needs to pass through the pressure hull from the ever-increasing number of external sensors and electronic gear. IIRC, it's now the number one limiting factor to increasing "crush depth" and the place where subs spring leaks on deep test dives. With pressures well above 1,000 PSI at maximum cruise depth, bad things can happen.
Subs can hide in three dimensions. Surface ships cannot. Nor is it easy to hide the various signatures (IR, sonic, magnetic, wake, etc) of surface ships, especially huge aircraft carriers from the kinds of targeting sensors available to torpedo builders. With all the ways superfast torpedoes can be delivered (air, ship, undersea bunker) the next big naval war will clear any ocean area "in dispute" of surface ships in a few days. That's one reason why there's a new Air Force initiative to deliver lethal ordnance anywhere in the world in just a few hours.
The Pentagon's finally starting to believe the Chinese when they say they don't have to build expensive big ships - just enough cheap ship killing devices like the Shkval for one to get through. We've had some countermeasures in R&D, namely RAMICS and AHSUM, but it's unclear whether they will be a match for Shkvals entering the water from multiple launch platforms. Some say no countermeasures would or could be effective against nuclear-tipped super-cavitation torpedoes. As the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades (and nuke-tipped torpedoes!). Fortunately, they're much more expensive to produce than the HE variety.
-- Bobby G.
I'd expect the first watercraft to try superhydrophobic coatings would belong to those who have obscene amounts of money to spend on minute performance gains. So, America's Cup yachts and "row crew" rowboats.
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