OT: Will blade steels survive a shark / crocodile bite?

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St33L

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I saw some videos of sharks biting steel cages and bending them out of shape, which struck my curiosity.

Will sufficiently hard (HRC 50's+) blade steels survive shark and crocodile bites?

Of course, we have to assume a minimum thickness and it depends on the steel type...

So, how about a 0.25" thick 440CM?

And, by "survive" I mean, will it get bent out of shape, or will it just have scratches from the bite?

Or, maybe it'll do more damage to the animals' teeth than the blade steel, if at all.

Saltwater crocodiles have a bite force of about 7,700 psi, and bull sharks have a bite force of about 1,250 psi.
 
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INFI shark cage!

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question as I just woke up. I'd lean towards, "yes".
 
Maybe Cold Steel can work this into one of their next videos.....:p..........Been watching too much Shark Week?
 
I'd like to meet the person who's willing to get their hand close enough to a croc's mouth with an open blade to find this out!
 
I dont think a shark is gonna be able to bite through most hardened knife blades. The cages getting bent doesnt surprise me as its usually the weight of the animal combined with its bite force that does the damage. A knive blade i think would be scratched plenty but neither animal has the power to bite clean through it.
 
PURPLEDC said:
I dont think a shark is gonna be able to bite through most hardened knife blades. The cages getting bent doesnt surprise me as its usually the weight of the animal combined with its bite force that does the damage. A knive blade i think would be scratched plenty but neither animal has the power to bite clean through it.
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I agree with you(it was bound to happen sooner or later:p), but the OP just mentioned "bending".

I'm thinking a big ole 20 foot long croc could bend it, and maybe a large shark as well. Really just speculating though. Have no idea.
Who's gonna test this for us :p
 
Well in JAWS (which is very realistic ;)), the shark was chewing on that scuba tank like a chicklet and never punctured it. Chief Brody had to shoot the darn thing... I think a knife would come out okay.
 
PURPLEDC said:
I dont think a shark is gonna be able to bite through most hardened knife blades. The cages getting bent doesnt surprise me as its usually the weight of the animal combined with its bite force that does the damage. A knive blade i think would be scratched plenty but neither animal has the power to bite clean through it.
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Most of those cages are made out of aluminum tubing.
 
St33L said:
I saw some videos of sharks biting steel cages and bending them out of shape, which struck my curiosity.

Will sufficiently hard (HRC 50's+) blade steels survive shark and crocodile bites?
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"survive" depends on the material used in the cage and the size of the animal. Hardened tool steel has very high strength. It is easy enough to find material to make shark cages out of that is probalby around twice as strong as what they are using now. Hardened tool steels will be in the ballpark of 5 times the strength of the material used now so yes the cages would resist sharks much better. The tradeoff though is that hardened tool steel has less ductility, so when the animal bites the cage instead of the bars bending, they will just break and then the cage will not offer much protection at all.

(I'm basing this on common structural steel having ultimate strength of about 58 ksi, and common aluminum somewhat below that. I know some of the better alloys of structural steel are just above 100 ksi and the top alloys of aluminum are somewhat similar. And the really high strength steel such as post tension reinforcing is 270 ksi. In general terms mildly hardened tool steel seems to be about as hard as post tension reinfocing.)
 
Ken44 said:
They couldn't if was Rosta Frei steel.
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Given time rats can gnaw through some steel. Copper mesh, even though much softer than steel works better as it hurts their teeth.
 
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