416 / 2022-07-31 15:24:26

Design of Granular Chains to Reduce the Force Transmitted to a Fixed Barrier

Granular media, granular container, transmitted force

Nonlinear Vibration and Control

In this work, we design a granular container to reduce the force transmitted to a fixed barrier following the application of an impulsive load to one end of a granular chain. Its performance is better than that of a dimer granular chain designed for the same purpose. We find the relationship between the transmitted force and the ratio of the mass of the light beads to that of the heavy beads, and the relationship between transmitted force and the number of beads in each subchain for a fixed total chain length (in our examples, 1 meter). The results are verified by experiments, from which we also estimate the values of damping between the beads and the stiffness between the end bead and the barrier. A phenomenon of propagating local oscillations is found in simulations of this system and demonstrated in experiments. This result provides a basis for the design of granular shock absorbers for applications such as machine tool foundations.