FORCE DISPERSION AND SHOCK DAMPING MEDIATED BY CLOSE-PACKED ARRAYS OFDISTALLY CONNECTED CELLS

Though current materials developed to prevent damage to goods and/or p ain and injury to human limbs actually absorb relatively little and di sperse virtually no energy in confined spaces, we still primarily rely upon the limited physical properties of such conventional protective materials. New structures (that consist of arrayed cells which are pre ssurized with fluid and interconnected with distant cells via channels ) have been shown to efficiently disperse force and damp shock. A seri es of experiments demonstrated that when dynamic force was applied to the tops of these structures, the dispersion mechanism of the structur e resulted in a markedly decreased maximum pressure at the bottom surf ace as well as a gradual rather than sudden increase of the pressure w hich remained. The maximum pressure is reduced by at least a factor of ten over that of conventional ''bubble packaging-like'' material. A t heoretical analysis of dynamic energy dispersion is also provided, whi ch accounts for flow resistance in channels and agrees well with the e xperimental results. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.