Duralumin fueled pewter toughness and fall damage

[DoctaDajman]

Do you think duralumin fueled pewter burn as the user is hitting the ground would strengthen their bodies enough to survive the fall?  I guess you could tier this. 

1 story? 

5 stories? 

10? 

Terminal velocity? 

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

It'll vary depending on how much pewter they have to burn, is it just a regular vial's worth or have they filled their stomach like Wayne did with bendalloy at the end of TLM?

Vin used a regular vial's worth with duralumin to completely cave in another Pewterarm's face without dying, though the effort did knock her out, so we kind of have a baseline.

Actually, maybe we can math this out a bit with the physical multipliers of pewter by multiplying how far an average human can fall without hurting themselves. But the dangers of falling also depend on how one lands, landing on your head will be far worse than landing on your feet, so we'll just assume that this hypothetical Duralumin-Pewterarm is landing on their feet.

Now first question: How far can a normal human fall without harming themselves? My web browser says about 5 meters.

WOB states that an average Pewterarm can double their physical abilities when burning pewter, and triples when flaring. So that would mean that a pewter arm can handle a 10m fall when burning, and a 15m fall if flaring.

Now for the tricky bit, how much of a multiplier is Duralumin? 

It uses up all metals "In an instant", but that instant seems to last for several seconds, so let's just say that if burned alongside a vial containing 10 minutes worth of continuous pewter burning, it'll use it up in about 3 seconds.

That's 600 seconds compressed into roughly 3, so according to my very rough calculations that should be a 200-fold multiplier to a Pewterarm's physical abilities for about three seconds. So said Pewterarm should, theoretically and very briefly, be able to survive from a fall of about 1000 meters, provided that they time it really well and are falling straight down and not onto an incline.

[Corgen]

Quote

WOB states that an average Pewterarm can double their physical abilities when burning pewter, and triples when flaring. So that would mean that a pewter arm can handle a 10m fall when burning, and a 15m fall if flaring.

Physics doesn't work that way.

[DoctaDajman]

12 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

It'll vary depending on how much pewter they have to burn, is it just a regular vial's worth or have they filled their stomach like Wayne did with bendalloy at the end of TLM?

Vin used a regular vial's worth with duralumin to completely cave in another Pewterarm's face without dying, though the effort did knock her out, so we kind of have a baseline.

Actually, maybe we can math this out a bit with the physical multipliers of pewter by multiplying how far an average human can fall without hurting themselves. But the dangers of falling also depend on how one lands, landing on your head will be far worse than landing on your feet, so we'll just assume that this hypothetical Duralumin-Pewterarm is landing on their feet.

Now first question: How far can a normal human fall without harming themselves? My web browser says about 5 meters.

WOB states that an average Pewterarm can double their physical abilities when burning pewter, and triples when flaring. So that would mean that a pewter arm can handle a 10m fall when burning, and a 15m fall if flaring.

Now for the tricky bit, how much of a multiplier is Duralumin? 

It uses up all metals "In an instant", but that instant seems to last for several seconds, so let's just say that if burned alongside a vial containing 10 minutes worth of continuous pewter burning, it'll use it up in about 3 seconds.

That's 600 seconds compressed into roughly 3, so according to my very rough calculations that should be a 200-fold multiplier to a Pewterarm's physical abilities for about three seconds. So said Pewterarm should, theoretically and very briefly, be able to survive from a fall of about 1000 meters, provided that they time it really well and are falling straight down and not onto an incline.

I agree with @Corgen on this one. Once you have fallen roughly 450 meters you hit terminal velocity and wont fall any faster anymore. Hitting the ground from 450 meters or from 10,000 meters would be the same in terms of damage dealt. 

I think you are absolutely right about how you land making the most difference. Dont land on your head. 

Terminal velocity comes out at like 120mph. For reference paratroopers hit the ground at about 15mph. 

I dont know much about physics but calculating a 200lb man falling at 120mph, when he hits the ground it would be like 130,500 joules of energy. That same man falling at 15mph hits with 2,000 joules. That is a 65x greater amount of force. 

A quick Google answer estimated the force needed to break the legs at about 3000 joules. Which is about 43x less than terminal velocity. 

 

Pewter does enhance all of the body which is a big bonus here. Evidence suggests that all tissue gets stronger and denser when burning pewter. I would say you would need to at least be able to amplify your body to be at least 44x more than what it usually is to be saved from a terminal velocity fall. 

I'm not saying this is the way pewter works for toughness as well, but if the twice as much applies to the desnity and strength of the tissues then I would imagine that you would only need a few minutes worth of pewter in your system to duralumin burn it through the landing of a fall even at terminal velocity.  

The way you hit the ground also matters right? I think pewter would allow the person to reposition the best and time the duralumin portion of the burn the best to absorbed the maximum damage as well. 

 

[Nitpicking]

But what if you become a duralumin savant? You could eat a bunch of the metal, then use half of it to zap-burn the other half and get a super-surge of power ....