Fences are yucky, so I question my sanity improving them, there is an ecological as well as thriftiness benefit to making them more cheaply as well as more durable.
the wire that a "cyclone" fence
/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/
is made from could be tubular, saving a third to two thirds the material. Now as the material is galvanized the cheaper crimptube forming could be used to produce this, however the way the wiggle /\/\/\/\/\/ strands are made suggests that a machine weaving authentic tubes would also work.
Also there is an opportunity to ponder "fence theory", hitchhiking I climb a lot of these, almost without exception the grid spacing lacks relevance at keeping people from climbing over them, thus I suggest wider grid spacing to save materials. The major emphasis might be preventing nonhuman mammals from passing through these fences, I am not sure how effective they are at that.
The fence posts could be different. right now, these are metal posts with cement anchors. These frequently go out of alignment, distorting the fences, eventually pulling them down. Noting that a tilting fencepost is like a gradually moving lever, I think the cement at the base of the fencepost if weighted with scrap iron (perhaps 40$/ton) could double the mass of the side of the lever that resists tilting. I have seen many autodrooping fences yet have yet to see a weighted cement fencepost blob.
An engineer verifying that "weeble ized" fenceposts actually stay up more effectively then gives the opportunity to specify fewer fence posts per mile possibly saving on labor as well as materials.
as a potentially funner more amusing fence technology, some fences have decorative polymer privacy slats. I think it might be possible to create a photovoltaic LED polymer slat that lights up which could be pretty, fun, or reassuring. Alibaba.com actually says you can get an 8 LED holiday light at .25 to .35c So you could possibly light up ten slats at less than a dollar.
although only part of the 46,000 mile US highway system (92,000 both ways, around 400 to 500 million feet) has cyclone fencing It is possible that tens or hundreds of millions of feet of fencing could be respecified at that particular opportunity, cheaply benefitting the environment as well as reducing labor. I think it is a multi hundred million $ eco opportunity, which may also apply to other regions of the world to create a billion dollar ecosavings
fences are abhorrent, I prefer there be less of them, if they exist they could be made more cheaply.-- beanangel, Mar 28 2012 You mean that I'm not the only one who ever hitchhiked?
Did have to climb a few chain link fences between the freeway and the rest of the world - the occasional three strand barb wire as well.
Most else is not practical to climb - or gets damaged by the climber, which is bad - kind of a "take only memories, leave only footprints" philosophy.-- normzone, Mar 28 2012 If the fence posts actually looked like Weebles, I'd be tempted to bun this...-- xandram, Mar 28 2012 random, halfbakery