Force dispersion and shock damping mediated by close-packed arrays of distally connected cells

Though current materials developed to prevent damage to goods and/or pain and injury to human limbs actually absorb relatively little and disperse 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 pressurized with fluid and interconnected with distant cells via channels) have been shown to efficiently disperse force and damp shock. A series of experiments demonstrated that when dynamic force was applied to the tops of these structures, the dispersion mechanism of the structure resulted in a markedly decreased maximum pressure at the bottom surface as well as a gradual rather than sudden increase of the pressure which remained. The maximum pressure is reduced by at least a factor of ten over that of conventional “bubble packaging-like” material. A theoretical analysis of dynamic energy dispersion is also provided, which accounts for flow resistance in channels and agrees well with the experimental results.