ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,305,731, issued on May 20, was assigned to THE CURATORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI (Columbia, Mo.).
"Energy dissipation using negative stiffness shells" was invented by Mohamed El-Gawady (Rolla, Mo.) and Yasser Darwish (Rolla, Mo.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A negative stiffness shell has a convex first position, but can transition or snap to a concave second position under a force applied to the exterior surface of the shell in the convex first position. During the transition, the shell exhibits negative stiffness that permits a large amount of energy to be absorbed. The negative stiffness shell can withstand a high initial force ...