Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Cap's shield is made of vibranium which absorbs energy. Surely, it can't store an infinite amount of energy so it must then convert this in some other form (possibly heat?).
How does it achieve this? Have we ever seen the shield bleeding of this excess energy in some fashion?
If we're talking about the Cinematic Universe, it's a bit fuzzy. Vibranium is supposed to store mechanical/kinetic energy, and we do see that when applicable - stopping bullets & energy weapon blasts in the First Avenger, absorbing a fall in Winter Soldier, et cetera.
However, there's also scenes where it... doesn't work like that. The most common are the multiple use of ricochets in all of the films (No vibrations = no ricochet!), but the one closest to what you're asking is from the original Avengers film, where Iron Man & Cap combo the shield to mow down several Chitauri using the shield as a deflection tool... which also wouldn't work if the vibranium was absorbing the incoming energy.
That's my guess from my misspent youth in physics - Vibranium, through its atomic structure, converts kinetic energy from impacts into kinetic energy as vibrations at a very high rate of efficiency, and this dissipates from the metal as sound waves ( Vibrations in air, hence the name ).
