Variable Stiffness News Today

Smart materials that can actively tune their stiffness are of great interest to many fields, including the construction industry, medical devices, industrial machines, and soft robotics. However, developing a material that can offer a large range of stiffness change and rapid tuning remains a challenge. Herein, a liquid metal variable stiffness material (LMVSM) that can actively and rapidly tune its stiffness by applying an external magnetic field or by changing the temperature is developed. The...

Engine mount is an important subassembly installed between the chassis and the engine. Its importance is mainly reflected by its capability of protecting the car body from the engine-induced vibrations. The current semi-active engine mount works to mitigate the vibration by changing its damping, while the property of variable stiffness can further suppress the vibrations by reducing the vibration transmissibility. Therefore, this paper developed a new magnetorheological engine mount which can ch...

Pinehurst Medical Clinic announced today that it has invested in a new video endoscopy system for advanced gastrointestinal (GI) care. The Olympus EVIS EXERA II

Over the recent few decades, the evolving research-field of legged robotics has seen various mechanical and control-based developments. Inspired by biological species, a significant adaptation in modern mechanical leg designs has been the implementation of adjustable stiffness, shifting from what were previously simple linkages to more-complex variable stiffness actuators. Physiological studies previously demonstrated leg-stiffness modulation was not only a common trait in multiple biological lo...

Engine mount is an essential component to support the vehicle engine and to determine the vehicle dynamic property in terms of noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH). It works as the important interface between the engine and the chassis to reduce the bad impact of the engine-induced vibrations on the car body. To this end, this paper proposed a new semi-active engine mount capable of variable stiffness as an attempt to further improve the vibration reduction capability of the current semi-active...

Abstract Semi-active devices have been widely investigated and applied due to their advantages in control systems. However, for satisfying complicated applications, some semi-active devices need to be capable of controlling multiple mechanical properties, which is hard to implement with a mechanical network considering the space limitation. In this paper, a semi-active variable equivalent stiffness and inertance (VESI) device is developed by an electrical network and an electromagnetic device i...

  If youve ever had an iPhone Lightning cable in your car, you already know how fragile they are. Apple may now have a solution that could also protect any kind of cable. Apple is never going to say that Lightning cables have a death wish, but it has come close in a newly revealed patent application that is really about fixing the problem. "Cable with Variable Stiffness," does not mention Lightning once, nor does it say anything approaching the word "frayed." "It is well known that bending of ...

Apple patent application imagines charging cables that might not fray so easily Share this story Image: Apple Apple’s charging cables aren’t exactly known for their durability. They often fray after a year or two and can even break down to the point where they won’t charge your device at all. (I’ve also noticed they can turn an increasingly sour shade of yellow.) But Apple is apparently working on some ideas to make its cables more durable, filing a patent application for a “Cable wit...